Do bottlefed babies sleep better and longer at night than breastfed ones ?

[Katty68]

I have a 5 month old exclusively BF boy. He is my one and only ! His sleep patterns have been erratic since birth. I have read in many different sources that it is a myth that BF babies wake up more often at night. But what do you think and know from experience ? Does anyone think that frequent night wakings are related to how full babies are ? i.e. as breast milk is digested in only 1.5 hours as opposed to 4 hours for formula - do you think BF babies have worse sleep patterns than bottlefed ones? Also do BF babies sleep better once solids are introduced so that they feel more full during sleep hours ? I intend to introduce him to solids at 6 months.
Please discuss.

In answer to the question of the thread title; NO

IME and from what I have read on here, babies sleep patterns are a matter of luck - some babies just do - and getting them in to good habits like settling themselves rather than being settle with a bosom (it is very easy to BF then in the small hours just to get some sleep).

I do so hope this thread doesn't get distorted in to a factional tirade.

My DD was breastfed til 8 months and was a poor sleeper from the start, mainly due to colic. I started solids at 4 months. It had absolutely no effect on her sleep patterns...still awful! She didn't sleep through at all until she was 11 months and that lasted about a week!! I think a lot has to do with how you get them to sleep. DD was rocked, cuddled and swaddled as it was the only way to comfort and get her to sleep as she was in so much pain with colic. And so the routine began............

Just to back up suzywong's comments (which I would do anyway having recently made her brownies for the first time ) I have two children, both breastfed throughout babyhood. One slept shockingly badly and the other brilliantly. I don't think dd ever woke more than once a night even when she was tiny (I never let her go more than 4 hours, obviously) but she slept very soundly. There were lots of variables between the two of them but breastfeeding wasn't one of them!

Ds1 was bf for the first 6 weeks. He slept very badly indeed (probably no more than 6 hours in a day). At 6 weeks he moved onto formula. His sleep (or lack thereof) was completely unchanged.

Ds2 was bf for approximately 5-6mths. He didn't sleep too badly compared to his brother (perhaps 8 or 9hrs per day). He then moved on to formula and again his sleep pattern was unchanged.

IME bf or taking formula makes absolutely no difference to a particular child. If they have a tendency to need little sleep then that's what you get.

I don't think the way you feed your baby has anything to do with how well/badly they sleep.

Yes, breastmilk is digested faster than formula (but I don't think it's 1.5 hours versus 4 hours, is it?) but as tamum says, there are lots of variables! Ds was a shocking sleeper until about 11 months and was bf'ed but equally he was on solids from 5 months so they obviously made not one jot of difference!

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a magic formula (no pun intended) for good sleep patterns. I'm sure others will disagree - and have methods they swear by - but I have always been of the opinion that 'sleeping through' is a developmental thing just as much as walking or talking - they'll do it when they're good and ready and not before. That's not to say there aren't things you can do to try and help it along, but I don't believe what or how they eat is one of 'em!

yes, I think I agree with moomina. the difference of speed in digesting bm is nowhere near as stark as 1.5hours v 4 hours. it is 3 hours v 4 hours. but that is all very much theoretical, and a lot of factors (including a huge dose of luck) govern babies sleep patterns.

You only think you agree with me, mts?

Just personal experience, but....my dd was breastfed and used to wake up for that nice 2am feed, after feeding at 10pm on the boob, in an effort to make dh more involved and give myself a break of an evening I expressed to bottle the 10pm feed and gave it to dh to do....dd slept until 6am, so we did it again and again and again...I think this worked for us, because she actually fed better/more from the bottle at 10pm, where as on the boob, she got to sleepy to be bothered and just dropped off until starving again....but like I say it worked nicely for us.

DS is bf and is now 6 months. He was still waking every 2 hours in the night for a feed which was doing my head in (also have dd (2 yrs) who needs entertaining during the day). I was given the impression that formula fed babies slept longer so I started giving a formula feed at 11pm hoping it would get him off for longer. No chance! He drains a bottle of formula with dh and then a couple of hours later wakes for his normal bf with mum - it's made no difference at all (although it's nice for me to have a break from bf once in a while).

He's not been a great sleeper from the start. We've used controlled sleeping to get him off in the day and early evening; but his cot's in our room (small flat) and cc at night just isn't feasible as he'd wake the entire house up. So I think I just have to accept (as several posters here have said) you just get what you're given (or deserve perhaps!) and I've got a nocturnal 2-hourly nipple-nibbler.

Have read here that many babies wake for a bottle in the night so not sure if it makes a difference. I think it might do so for younger babies because of the time of digestion as you said. However by 5/6 months it becomes partly a habit rather than hunger. Good luck with the solids (I did exactly the same with dd).

frizbe - I did this with DS1 for ages, and it did seem to help. Although I'm not sure you need to do it for ages - we stopped when we went on holiday, and it didn't make a difference! I think it might be just a question of getting them into the habit of sleeping longer at a go.

I'm not sure the bottle is the difference, it might also be that you tend to have less milk at the end of the day when you're tired. I certainly feel I have more milk in the morning, and find it much easier to express then. Which makes expressing in the morning and giving it to them in the evening make sense.

I bottlefed dd1 who never seemed to sleep and done a lot of screaming and I breastfed dd2 who slept like a ...baby! Thats my experience.

no

In my limited experience, DD1 who was bottle fed was a much better sleeper than DD2 who was breastfed. (Notice I said "was"; now at ages 5 and 2.5 it's the other way round.) But, I don't think that the substance they were ingesting (formula or beastmilk) necessarily had anything to do with it. I think it was a combination of DD1 just being a happier, more content baby, and that when DD2 arrived I was stressed, exhausted, a single parent, and just used to sleep with her and nurse her on demand all night long.

dont think the type of milk they are fed has anything to do with sleeping through. like someone said earlier, it really is a developmental thing. when they learn to fall asleep on their own they will sleep much better. i have a nearly 6 month old and she has slept through once! tried bf/bottle but no difference at all. tried cc and the second night of it she slept through. will have to get back to that though as she is now a 2-3 hourly nipple-nibbler again. as mummy is too weak and tired to do cc at the mo. not that i am saying you should do that of course! just telling you my experience

mine were breastfed and all slept through reasonably well from about 4 months old (with occasional bad nights).

My sister was exclusively BF for the first months of her life, but she was (and still is at 22yo) a poor sleeper. She co-slept with my parents at first but TBh she has never slept for very long at all. To the extent that my parents went to chat to the GP about her lack of sleep. Nothing changes with this low level of sleep when she was weened, or as she has grown older.

DD was BF for first 6 weeks (mixed from 4 weeks), then bottle fed. She slept really well between 6 and 14 weeks, but after that she didn't at all, waking in the night often, despite co-sleeping. Had to resort to some CC when she was 20 months.

So, I don't think the type of feeding makes much difference really - more the type of child you have.

Well I bottlefed my 1st and he slept through from before 8 weeks.
Exclusive breastfeeding of my ten week old and she wakes every few hours at night for a feed.

Well, I've only had the one dd, she was exclusively breastfed till 6 months, and she started sleeping 7pm-7am at 5.5 months. No formula, no solids, I think it was just luck. She likes her snooze - she's now 2.4 and on Saturday she slept 13 hours straight through, having had a 2 hour nap the previous afternoon! Am fully expecting my next one to be an insomniac.

A definate NO

My first DS slept through, fully breastfed, at 9 weeks. His brother was about 4 months. Next DS was 8 months and on solids from 5 months.

Last baby DD slept through from 4 months, woke for extra feeds at 5 1/2 months then slept all night again after a couple of weeks. She was exclusively breastfed for 6 months.

I have friends who bottlefed and whose babies did not sleep at night, even into toddlerhood. It all depends the babies' personality IMO.

my breast fed dd1 slept for 12 hrs a night from 6 weeks! i will eternally grateful to her for doing so

OK, my son was a TERRIBLE sleeper until he was 8months old. He woke up at all hours of the night and stayed awake for hours and hours and hours (eg wakeful until 10pm - slept until 11pm - stayed awake 1hour, slept midnight until two am - stayed awake until 5am, slept 45 mins, woke for 45, slept for 20mins.... .you get the picture. I went to an NHS sleep clinic and was asked to keep a sleep diary, which looked like a novel after just one night! The point of all this? Well, my ds was mixed fed. And weaned at just under four months due to enormous pressure from all sorts who assured me it would improve his sleeping. It all made NO difference whatsoever. If we gave him formula during the day or last thing at night or during the night he slept no better and no longer than if he was breastfed. And no, he couldn't latch on while I was lying down to all that you hear about sleepy feeding where you just like down and sleep and feed and the sleepy bliss of co-sleeping is so far from my experience I can't tell you. Also, weaning had absolutely NO effect. He's always been a chubby, well-nourished boy with a good appetite, but it didn't mean he slept. So what did? God knows. I think he just grew out of it to some extent which made him ready for controlled crying (which emphatically did not work at 6months). At eight months it was quick and easy, and he's slept wonderfully well ever since (now aged three). It really does IMO depend on the individual baby and their temperament and needs. I sympathise 100% with how horrible it is to have constantly massively broken nights. It's just miserable. I can still hardly bear to read about babies that slept through at 6 weeks etc as it makes me feel quite upset! But I must be absolutely mad because I'm pregnant and due in February and, frankly, quite dreading it - or at least the first months of it. Couldn't love my son more and he's the light and joy of my life, but I there were many 3ams where I just sat and cried with exhaustion and frustration. But what he ate or drank had nothing to do with it. If I were you, I'd stay with what you are doing and share the load as much as you can with your partner at night using expressed breastmilk if that works for you, and getting help during the day so you can try to catch up on your sleep.