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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

Do bottle fed babies really sleep for longer periods?

26 replies

asampras · 06/04/2007 21:07

Just our of curiousity, do babies who are bottle fed sleep for longer periods (presumably because you can see how much they are feeding as opposed to breast feeding), particularly through the night? I was in a hospital waiting room and made conversation with a lady who said her baby had it's last bottle feed at 9pm and slept through to 7am, i breast feed and sometimes i'm up every 30-40mins through the night!

OP posts:
HumphreysYummyChoccyEggCorner · 06/04/2007 21:11

Well, was up more times with my bottle fed v. hungry wildchild DD1 than with my breast fed laid back not so hungry DD2. I'm sure everyone will have a different story to tell.

xxx

tinkerbellhadpiles · 06/04/2007 21:13

Asampras - suspect she probably had selective hearing during those periods!

popsycal · 06/04/2007 21:14

no
(though i have a non-sleeping breast fed 2 year old...i also have a friend with a non-sleeping bottle/.cup fed 3 year old)

popsycal · 06/04/2007 21:14

to make matters worse, I have a 12 week old niece who has expressed ebm who has slept through from 6 weeks
grrrr

raspberryberet · 06/04/2007 21:15

I think it's more a case of all babies being different, rather than one type of feeding being more likely to get them to sleep for longer.

Both mine breastfed; dd slept for 8 hours from about six weeks, ds had me up every couple of hours until he was eight months old.

colditz · 06/04/2007 21:16

ds1 - slept through at 6 or 7 weeks
ds2 - still up for 2 feeds at 8 months.

Both bottle fed, same formula, same birthweight, same parents....

It's more about the baby than the feeding method, I think.

colditz · 06/04/2007 21:16

there you go, see? no differance

PanicPants · 06/04/2007 21:17

Can't speak for everyone, but when I was breastfeeding I was up every hour feeding ds. When I switched to formula he only woke once for a feed at about 2 am.

It changed my life switching to formula. Although next time I would still give breastfeeding a chance.

coleyboy · 06/04/2007 21:18

Oh lordy, I remember those night feeds that seem to start as soon as the last one had finished. Thank the lord it gets better!

I'm not convinced the type of feed dictates the length of sleep, I think it's more to do with the baby.

fortyplus · 06/04/2007 21:22

Mine were both bf but slept brilliantly when I started topping up the last bf with some expressed milk. The mw said it was because when they were sleepy they found it harder to keep sucking and it was easy to get a bit extra from the bottle. It certainly worked for me - mine slept about midnight till 6am from a month old.

amijee · 06/04/2007 21:36

My personal view is that ( other than variations in babies) it's due to the botttle rather than formula. ie - EBM would do the same.

Babies breast feed thru the night for so many reasons other than hunger. It's the whole comfort and closeness thing which although present with the bottle, isn't quite as extreme. That's why they get dependant on falling asleep with the boob when they wake up and are unable to put themselves back to sleep again.

I was feeding 2 hrly day and night until 5 mths and the one thing I would do differently next time round is not to feed the every time they wake up ( sometimes it was an hour after a previous feed) I think this sets them up to expect it every time and leads to poorer sleeping in an already poor sleeper.

Jenkeywoo · 06/04/2007 21:52

I would not agree that they sleep longer with EBM in a bottle - DD1 was unable to BF so had EBM for exclusively for first 6 months -she was demand fed and definatively fed as if she was bf, she did not have regular bottles and regular amounts she even cluster fed in the evening. My ffeeding friends couldn't believe how different her feeding patterns were from there FF babies.

I also don't believe how you feed them makes a difference - dd2 (BF) slept through the night (10pm-8am) from about 8 weeks till about 4 months and things have got worse and worse since then and now at a year she is up and down like a yo-yo. DD1 also had a brief phase of sleeping through when tiny but became a hell-hound from about 6 months and is an ok sleeper now but it take nearly an hour and three bottles to get her to sleep tonight

fortyplus · 06/04/2007 21:59

Well mine were waking every 3 hours or so but miraculously slept through as soon as I introduced EBM in a bottle as a top up. So it just goes to show that anything is worth a try - but it might not work.

multitasker · 06/04/2007 21:59

Yes

terramum · 06/04/2007 22:44

Makes no difference how a baby is fed imo...its more about the baby being ready to sleep for longer....just like with every other milestone they all do it at different ages.

DS was excl bf & slept 8 hours a night from 8 weeks of age apart from when he was teething.

ChrissyJ · 06/04/2007 22:58

The times I have fed my little one (10wk old) a bottle in the evening he has slept much longer than when I just breast feed him.

VeniVidiVickiQV · 06/04/2007 23:03

It is thought that formula takes slightly longer than bm to work through the baby's body. But other than that, NO. Its down to the individual character of the baby.

kittypants · 06/04/2007 23:07

no

macneil · 07/04/2007 04:08

In my experience, I suspect so. I express breast milk and give formula. When she drinks 100% breast she starts crying for food a lot earlier than when she drinks 100% formula - both are from the bottle, and the quantities are the same, plus isn't breast milk higher in calories per ml, so should satisfy her for longer? But I've been making the last feed of the day ff for as long as I can remember because of the rumour that this is true, so I have no anecdotal evidence on the long nighttime sleep, just daytime intervals between feeds.

Botbot · 07/04/2007 07:43

Mine did - she slept through from 6 weeks or so. In fact, a health visitor said 'that's one of the big advantages of bottle feeding that we don't advertise'.

Still wish I'd been able to breastfeed though

Pixiefish · 07/04/2007 08:26

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't formula heavier therefore thicker and therefore makes them sleep longer.

I have 2 friends who have just had babies and they are sle4eping through at a few weeks old whereas dd didn't sleep through until she was about 2 cos I still fed her in the night.

Am expecting #2 and dreading the night feeding

sandcastles · 07/04/2007 08:32

DD was formula feed, every 3 hours she woke like clockwork. Which was a bugger as it took minutes to feed her, but over an hour to get her back to sleep, then she would wake less then 2 hours later.

This went on until 9 months.

So no, imo.

Seona1973 · 07/04/2007 09:11

my dd woke for a night feed till she was 5 1/2 months. My ds still wakes for a feed and he is just over 6 months. Both have been formula fed. DS fed every 3 hours till he was 16 weeks and then started going closer to 4 hours. I think formula is getting closer to breastmilk and it therefore not as heavy and is being digested faster (although not quite as well as breastmilk)

LittleMonkiesMum · 07/04/2007 09:23

Not read all the posts, but when I switched DD1 to ff at 15/16 weeks, it didn't make a jot of difference to the amount she slept!

Nbg · 07/04/2007 09:26

Well my bottle fed ds is a nightmare sleeper. He can only go 4 hours max between feeds. Although last night it was only 2.