Breastfed babies are better behaved says study

[crikeybadger]

Link here if you are interested.

Spudulika - what's with the 4 bed house being mentioned again and again? and a "filthy" one at that? Who cares? for the record, mine is six and on an acre of land and I have no help but does that make my morning any more stressful than someone's in a one bed flat with 4 mouths to feed? I think not!

For me bottle feeding was quicker than breast feeding, simple as that. Many of my friends found this too but only had themselves to think of so could manage it. I didn't and DH works away a lot so it was all down to me.

Good for you that you have this leisurely time, I envy that in all honesty,

MilaMae, it's unfair of you to repeat that. I am no different from any of the other bf mums I know.

I have no idea why you didn't continue breastfeeding and frankly, it isn't really an issue, except maybe to you.

The point I was trying to make is that breastfeeding isn't usually incompatible with a normal, busy family life. You don't have to be unusually patient, or an earth mother, or a superwoman to do it. Anymore than you have to be to mother and care for a bottlefed baby. Babies are hard work generally. And they all need to be fed, changed and given attention.

not just ff vs bf but now whether it's easy or hard to find time for a shower with a newborn? competitive parenting gone into overdrive.

might just depend on personality of baby too. could easily have had a shower while dt1 played on her own. unfortunately she arrived with dt2 who needed to be held at all times. they're 7mo, and I still have days I don't have time to shower. (sometimes :shhh: a couple of days in a row)

Well, FWIW out of my 3 DS2 was breastfed for the longest (DS1 was only breastfed for a fortnight, DD was fed expressed milk for 6 months as she couldn't latch on properly, DS2 was breastfed for 9 months). He was least settled baby and the worst behaved toddler of the 3. He is also, coincedentally, the only one of the 3 to have inherited my asthma.

I am always a bit at these studies.

All this research makes no difference if the support women need to breastfeed is not there in the early hours and days. Most of us cannot just stick the baby on the boob and get on with things - it's a learned skill .

Oh and the DOH have put in NO money to this year's National Breastfeeding Week.

The last time I checked the postnatal wards were still understaffed and as a HV I am STILL seeing women at day 14 unable to get a baby latched on the breast and who are still using nipple shields because they've had bugger all help and support.

Irritated - me?

these sorts of studies should be used to beat the DOH with convince the DOH to fund bf support.

Loopy - there's no need for that. The point I was making was that I have a large home to look after. (though not as large as yours as I see. AND an acre of land! You must be considerably richer than me!). Homes don't look after themselves. You will usually spend more time looking after a large house than a small house.

"For me bottle feeding was quicker than breast feeding"

How long did you breastfeed for? Bf tends to get quicker you know. In any case, you can still move around while you're breastfeeding. Brush a child's hair. Stack the top draw of the dishwasher. Answer the phone. Read to your other children. Find a pair of socks. Put the kettle on. Make a cup of tea. etc, etc.

"Good for you that you have this leisurely time"

Is waking up at 6am and feeding the baby for half an hour in bed while having a cup of tea a ridiculous luxury for a busy mum? What would you be doing instead at that time?

I have the same hours in the day as you, other children to feed and a home to run. Clearly the time has to come from somewhere. As long as your other children aren't being neglected and are fed and at school on time, what else is so pressing that breastfeeding is impossible?

Not read all the threads but thought i'd add my tuppance worth! Not sure at the point of these studies if there is no more investment going into helping mums bf, all it does is make mums who already feel guilty feel more guilty. And behaviour must be one of the hardest things to measure as it depends on so many other factors......

fwiw I bf my dd for 11 long months and her tantrums were explosive to the point that people crossed the street when she lost it!!!

Also fwiw don't get the comment about bottle feeding being quicker!!! One of the reasons I bf was because Im really lazy and bf was def quicker than bottle feeding. The milk is there 24hrs a day on tap, right temp and no need to sterilise anything!!! Bottle feeding imo is a pita!!!

Spud - it's not a ridiculous luxury at all and I'm being genuine when I say I envy it. I am normally the queen of organisation but struggled with this. I bf for six weeks and had planned to do it a little longer but it was too much of a struggle and much to my own frustration I cannot stand to see jobs around the house piling up even though they are unimportant. It stresses me out, I wish it didn't, but it does. Ff suited me better, was quicker, and didn't need doing quite as often.

As a family we all seemed to find life a bit less difficult when I stopped bf, I know it's not about it being easy, but baby was happy, I was happier, and so was everyone else. That said, I'm glad I did bf for a while.

The point of the studies is to find out more about how infant feeding impacts on child development. That's all. I think that's a worthy topic for enquiry, however the study is reported and received.

Really interesting study and thread! Thinking a lot about the cause and effect stuff re baby personality - DS1 was breastfed for 6 weeks of hell. Just didn't want to feed (and didn't get much better with a bottle either). Colic, reflux and generally a "challenging" and high intensity baby.

DS2 a much easier baby (despite the cardiac op and time in NICU when newborn) and much easier to feed. Despite the presence and "help" of DS1...

As a personal experience mine was closer to GoingLoopyLou's. I dont remember bottles being a particular faff, I was back at work very quickly and DH and I used to get the following day's bottles ready together. I remember we used to do them like a production line (scoop, scrape, tip, scoop, scrape, tip.....ahhh happy days!). Popped them in the fridge then off we went to bed.

When a bottle was needed, out of the fridge, into the microwave, good shake, into DC. We took it in turn to do the night feeds, one night on, one night off (we were both working full time). Couldnt do that breast feeding!

BTW before anyone starts howling about how terrible a parent I was, my DCs are now 11, 12 and 15 and have survived the neglect quite well.

These studies are useful and interesting. Personally I would prefer to see more depth as I think that there is a bit too much simplicity with assuming that A causes B. IMO there is far more to be discovered.

tiktok, just wanted to thank you for your very interesting contributions on this thread.

(Read about the study in the paper and suspected there was more to it than was reported!)

As usual another study with very little truly scientific evidence to support the claims

As always, the wonderful t hing about bottle feeding is someone else can share in the feeding of the baby. I

OK, amother, how would you go about testing the question of whether or not artificial feeding of infants has a negative effect on brain development, with particular reference to behaviour rather than IQ.

What would improve this study enough that you'd count it as scientific?

if only no-one else would share in the feeding of the baby

bitter about DH and DD1 trying to join in<

interesting study. what i wonder is - when you look at a country were everyone Bfs, pretty much, do they have the same total level of behavioural problems (so is this a real phenomenon, or an associated socio-economic one/ indefinable characteristics one (even given controls for this)) once controlled for country-to country confounds (so, comparing the Uks leafy suburbs with those of , say, scandanavia)

though i still agree that instead of spending the money on study, it should be getting more help to those women who want to BF and struggle.

generally questionnaires are counted as valid for a variety of study kinds (think about the edinburgh test...for one) so no reason why not this particular one.

I think also in this country if a baby screams alot, the mother is more likely to be pressured into FF to keep it 'satisfied'. Possible confound?

Just out of interest, I wonder whether there's a difference in the amount that bf/ff babies are held (for feeds) when they're older as well as in the early days? For example, my 16 m.o. currently has 4 bfs a day (which I'd guess is lower than average for a bf toddler), and at 11/12 months he was having about 11 feeds a day. FF'ing friends were/are only giving one bottle a day at those ages, or had given up bottles completely. Of course, they could be holding a baby while giving them a cup of milk, but I'd be surprised if many ff babies were having 11 milk feeds a day at 12 months.

Obviously both groups hold their babies at plenty of other times.

Takver, you're welcome :)

amother, you may not like the study (why not?), but you cannot claim it is not 'scientific'. It's a perfectly respectable observational cohort study, with sensible acknowledgement of confounders (though we have already raised on this thread how hard it would be to include all confounders)...and it makes no 'claims' at all, it just reports what the observations show, revealing its 'workings out' . It does not talk about cause and effect.

Eggy - I agree, personality of the baby may well be a confounder.

Amothersplace, how do you conclude this study is invalid?

Meanwhile, I bf'd ds1 for two years. He is the most tyrannical, defiant blighters I know. Might as well have fed him Sunny D from day 1!

BrokenBananaTantrum

Your post made me . Please don't feel like that! You sound like a wonderful person & mother & I am sure your daughter is a beautiful girl who will grow & make your very proud.

My dd1 is 7 now, never had a drop of bm in her life & is mainly well behaved. She is polite, uses her manners, cares about her little sister, does as she is told, is a hard worker & tried hard to please. Always has. Was never a typical toddler. No tantrums, happy to go anywhere, do anything etc.

Dd2 (almost 3) is a terror! A typical tantrum throwing, running off at any opportunity toddler!

Guess which one was bf!

In my mind, it is more to do with the way you raise them, your core values, your examples!

Please don't let this article upset you!

Suddenly came with this idea: How do they know it is the way the children was fed in infancy that made the difference? I mean everybody worries about ff or bf but surely the child's diet after weaning must have some consequences too.
I assume not all the kids in this study were fed the same stuff all the time till the age of 5. It's like bf or ff is the only factor affecting behaviour. Surely other factors such as arrival of siblings, activities have an impact.
Having said that I have not read the whole study.

Elsie, the study can conclude there is an association between feeding methods and behaviour because of the way the research was conducted. It is reasonable to look at infant feeding because

i) you can define it and treat it separately (all the other elements of a toddler-pre-schooler diet could amount to 100s of items)
ii) it is the sole form of nourishment for babies for the first few months when we know that very rapid brain development is taking place - the brain never develops as rapidly again as it does during this time

So you take 10,000 subjects and collect as much data on them all as you can (which is what they are doing with the Millennium Cohort - many researchers are using this data for many child health studies). You can then control for the aspects this team controlled for - socio-economic factors, attachment between mother and baby and so on, birth order (I think there were about 15 factors). You can then be as sure as you can be that when you are comparing ff with bf, you are isolating this factor.

Infant feeding is certainly not the only, and not even the major, association with behaviour at 5, and the paper doesn't say anything to even suggest that. That;s why they have controlled for so many other things. Your idea that the study is saying 'it's as if bf/ff was the only thing affecting behaviour' is just wrong.

I take your point but I am still a bit skeptical about it.

If you are sceptical, then read the whole paper, or even the abstract. If you are only reading media reports, or the thread here, you are right to be sceptical :)