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.

Not in my case! When dh did night duty it made no difference (and he wasn't breastfeeding ds )
Leaving him to cry for a short time or a longer time at night also made no difference.

Not in my experience. My baby was breastfed exclusively too and she slept for 7 hours at 8 weeks. Think it depends on your babys personality IMO. Dh and I are very laid back people - almost horizontal infact

Message withdrawn

I am totally astounded at the quick response to my initial message - 28 messages later from all of you - thanks so much ! It does make me feel better that I am not doing anything wrong - plus I now have hard evidence from your experiences to show DH that he is wrong about BF. He has always been of the impression that bottle-fed babies sleep better (though he is extremely supportive of my insistence to BF for at least 1 year). I am pleased to see that the overwhelming consensus of your messages is that it makes absolutely no difference what you put in the babies tummy! I have to say my darling georgeous little boy is lively, has been extremely alert from the minute he was born (to the extent that people on the street comment on his alertness !!), developing very fast for his age (5 months) and so I tend to agree that his rubbish sleep pattern has to do with his liveliness during the day and not what he has been fed. My own female GP told me to "put him on formula at night" when he was only a week old so that he would sleep longer. So obviously there is a huge myth out there somewhere. I am pleased I ignored her. I guess I will just have to put up with the exhaustion until "he grows out of it" as many of you have suggested.
ps: DH and I are both rubbish sleepers - DH is officially the worst sleeper I have ever known and I have been an insomniac from around age 13 !! I wonder whether it's genetic then ?

Adding more, hope you don't mind katty68. I believe it makes no difference although in my case it did.. logical eh? in my case, ds used to sleep hardly at all at night, feeding for 45 mins to an hour, every hour/90 mins. then slept a lot during the day. But his problem was just hunger, because I hadn't got the latch right and I don't think he was getting enough of my milk. After a few days in hospital because his jaundice wasn't clearing, we began topping up and he slept much better, but I firmly believe it was simply because he wasn't getting enough breastmilk due to poor technique/support, not because formula is intrinsically more satisfying.

hope that makes sense.

When I was breastfeeding I used to find the evening feeding very very tiring because I seemed to have less milk and dd seemed to want to feed more. She was a very good sleeper though and I used to wake at 4 in the morning with lots of milk so I expressed it, stuck it in the fridge and gave it to her the following evening when she seemed to want more than I had. This did mean being awake at 4 in the morning (I only did it if I woke up naturally). If you're not opposed to formula then you could try topping him up with that in the evening. I also have friends who wake their babies at 10pm for another feed which encourages them to sleep for the rest of the night. I do think having a full stomach helps sleep but if you think he's getting enough milk in the evening then all this probably won't apply.

I'd say no, but having a fairly regular feeding routine may help. DD was exclusively bf'd and slept through my night from 8 weeks on. I don't think low volume of milk at night matters - it's a fattier composition then so is more soporific. And surely the evidence also shows that formula milk is harder to digest so gives more colicky wind, and doesn't provide the same protection against colds which also keep babies awake?

My lo is 14 weeks and totally BF and has been sleeping through 12 hrs (7-7) since wk 12 I think routine has more to do with it, making sure the biggest feeds are during daylight hours! I think it all depends on production of milk and think because I expressed from the beggining I have never had a problem with low milk, I even got 8oz from one boob once in the evening when milk is more likely to be low!! Because BF works on a supply and demand basis expressing means when baby has a growth spurt the demand is met when its needed not the day after.

No IME.

DS was bottle fed and slept through the night (12 hours) from 4 months or so.

DD is breastfed and has slept 10hrs+ a night from 5 weeks.

Well, IME it doesn't matter, DS was a terrible sleeper until we followed a sleeping pattern book, IME it was the routine and not the milk what made all the difference.

I have a bit of an unusual experience because my dd would never bf but I expressed for her so she got exclusively breast milk but from a bottle. She has only woken me in the noght twice since she was 3 weeks old (counting all of my lucky stars as we speak)

From the experience of my sisters who have 8 between them it really does just seem to be a personality thing, babies are good sleepers or they aren't. But one thing my sis did reckon was that my dd probably takes more breastmilk from the bottle than she would from the breast (which would send her to sleep quicker), which she reckons may be one influence on my little one sleeping so well. But this is pure speculation.

I now pump less and give dd the odd formula feed and she sleeps absolultely no differently when she has the formula bottle as opposed to the breastmilk one, and in the day is hungry no sooner - but that is just my experience.

With my first baby I was told bottle-fed babies slept better at night, so desperate for sleep I started to feed her bottles rather than bf at night. Didn't make one bit of difference, but is a very popular myth among older generation I think. Bottle-fed babies often get more tummy-aches and constipation etc than bf babies and this can also keep them awake at night.