Any good examples to give ff DH on how breastfed babies settle into routines?

[laumiere]

I tried to BF my DS, but gave up after 8 weeks (he was prem and had undiagnosed CP). We then put him on formula, and he started to gain weight and slept through the night from 4 months, with a very clear day/night routine,

I'm now expecting DS2 and am determined to give bfing another go. However DH is from a majority-ff family and all of his perceptions of how young babies behave are based from this. I've tried to explain that if I bf it's unlikely DS2 will settle into any kind of routine until at least 16 weeks plus, and that he's likely to wake in the night for a lot longer, but can someone point me in the direction of any information on how many times bf babies feed/wake up to about 6mo, or leave comments of your own experience?

DH is pro the benefits of bf, but I'd like to prepare him a little better for the realities, so that he doesn't keep suggesting formula when things get hard/because DS will have a full tummy.

Well DS (now 5.5 months) feeds 3 hourly in the day, and twice overnight at the moment. Growth spurts send him all over the place though. And at 4 months he was far worse at night. I do know people BFing babies that sleep right through though, at this age (or at least they say so!).

I think it was from about 3 months he settled into the 3 hour day routine.

No idea what the norm is though!

actually, although breasrtfed babies feed more frequently recent studies have shown that actually they (and mum) tend to get more sleep than formula fed babies.

plus, who wants to faff around in the middle of the night making a bottle up, with a screaming baby, when you can just chuck him on boob???

plus, it's so much better for him!

the whole routine thing is just a red herring IMO. there are FF babies who don't have a routine and wake frequently. there are bf babies who sleep through from early on.
it doesn't really matter though, as long as you're happy

BTW totally agree I couldn't be bothered faffing with formula at night, especially with current guidelines for making up feeds. Even if there were NO other reason to BF, that would be enough to put me off formula!

Plus BF at least in the early days does help you get back to sleep quickly. Sadly doesn't seem to work quite as well for me now, possibly because feeds are so much shorter.

I think a lot of DS1's 'routine' was because of the CP, he's always been very emotionally independent and slept a LOT (even at over 2 he goes to bed at 6.30 pm and sleeps until 8.30am). I just want DH to be prepared so he doesn't expect the same!

The first couple of weeks you have to feed like mad with no sense of day or night, but you'll understand this a little from your first DC.

Babies will quite often be happy with anything between 2-4 hour feeds during the day but come the evening will want to cluster feed and not be put down. You'll need support at this time.

Things gradually get better with the odd growth spurt blip until around 16-18 weeks when they can regress to newborn behaviour. (A very common time to give up)

Once through this it is usually plain sailing though.

DS1 was bottle fed and had no routine, fed day and night for weeks, it was very hard.

DS2 is breast fed and feeds every 3 hours exactly for about 10 minutes, with no encouragement whatsoever from me, and has done pretty much from day 1. He has never cluster fed yet. He is 4 weeks old and it could not have been easier (oh and he put on well over a pound last week so no worries there either).

It really is the baby, not the feeding method.

DS is 4 months exclusively BF. He eats every 3 hours, and has done so for the past 2 months or so.
Aside from a bad patch due to a cold, he has his evening feed at about 10 and sleeps through till 7.

He hasn't really cluster-fed ever (apart from when he was about 16 hours old at the hospital)- it definitely is the baby, not the feeding method.

DD was about the same as him, but she used to eat for ages- he just gulps down 5 mns on each side and he's done.

Both of them have been demand-fed btw I never tried to implement any routine. They just fell naturally into one.

I bf dc1 for 2 months and dc2 for 5 months. They both slept 12 hours from 4-5 months. dc2 was generally more settled at night but I couldn't say if that was because she was bf, her personality or because she is a NSC. I don't think ff babies do sleep through any earlier. Sometimes a problem with bf is that at the end of the day you are so knackered and run down that the last feed which you want to be biggish is too small but you can overcome by topping up with expressed milk or making sure you get enough rest, food and drink in the evenings.

Thanks, ladyjulia what is NSC? I couldn't find it in the acronyms.

Neglected Second Child (the younger sibling to a PFB)

I agree with much of the advice saying it is the baby rather than the feeding method. DD (fully bf) only ever had a feed at 10pm, and then from when she was new born would go to 3am/3 30, have one feed and then go back to sleep. She slept from 10pm to 7am from about 9 weeks. We dropped the 10pm feed at 5/6 months, although tbh we could have done it earlier but I was scared it would muck up her sleeping! We had a 'bedtime' routine from about 3 weeks old, where dh gave a bottle of expressed milk at 7pm. This meant that he was involved, I got a break, and she got lots of good quality milk late in the day(I expressed from one boob first thing in the morning whilst she fed from the other. If I didn't produce enough, I would 'top it up' later in the day) Also, it allowed me to build up lots of milk for a filling 10pm feed. I fed her A LOT during the day (anytime she twitched or whimpered!) and that may be one of the reasons she slept well....but I am sure part of it is luck.

firstly sleeping through the night is not the be-all and end-all. You are trying to improve your baby's long term health not just a short term better night's sleep imo.
DD is 8 months old and still fully bf. By 15 weeks she slept most nights from 7pm til 8am without a feed or waking at all. At 22 weeks she started waking every 15 mins for up to 3 hours at night. At 6 months this changed to waking once every night for about 15 mins and by 8 months she was back to waking for over an hour a night. We've had 2 weeks of her sleeping through again and it's heaven.
What I guess I'm trying to say is same baby, same bf but vastly different sleep patterns.
I would say to your dh, as I did with mine with ds, that if formula is to be discussed I would bring it up but I didn't want him to mention it at all.