Breastfed babies 'more challenging'?

[Woodlands]

Have just been reading this article (apologies if there's already a thread on this).

Personally I don't have anything to compare with, as my DS was (still is) breastfed, and nearly all my friends breastfed their babies too. Some of their babies are more challenging than others. When I saw the headline I thought it was going to be about breastfed babies needing fed more often/not sleeping for so long, but it seems it's more about them being less happy. Mind you in the comments it says this study was part funded by Mothercare.

What do people think?

i hear you otch. my 17mo and 3yo still tag team every night. 3 hours is dandy here too.

i bf all three of mine until one and they were all very happy and content babies except for dd2 who had reflux up to 5mths and then was much more relaxed. i was told if i had ff her she would have been in more pain after feeds as formula is harder to digest. but it was important to make sure she got to the hind milk. i know some people may not realise that they have not left their baby at the breast long enough to get to the hind milk during feeds. some babies are more erfficent at this. thats where the calories are and what will satisfy baby.

but going back to the original subject, i noticed out of my group of friends (i was the only breast feeder) that my baby was the most relaxed and cried the least, as soon as she as hungry I could just put her on but my friends had to stop and get teh bottle out, heat it up etc all teh time the babies were crying and getting in a state. also they seemed to watch the time more and be counting time between feeds. i just put baby to breast whenever they wanted especially in the early months so there was never any waiting.

otchayaniye was just about to say almost EXACTLY same thing. DD (19mo) has fed at least every 2 hours every night til 4 days ago, when I moved her from my bed into her own room. She slept through last night for the first time ever (woke 3 times previous nights but DH rocked her back to sleep). Have high hopes for tonight. DS followed exactly same pattern.
I couldn't believe how bloody brilliant I felt this morning after a full nights sleep! DD and I danced and laughed our heads off all morning!

btw re the research, despite ebfeeding LOADS, both mine have been very content babies - VERY rarely cried and never for more than about 20 seconds cos I've always just shoved a breast in their mouths.

i came up with a theory today

Breast fed babies are agitated because they are CONSTANTLY reminded by smell etc of food/milk and the mere presence of the mother increases arousal

The bottle fed baby does not have this stimulus everytime mother is near hence chills more

I am very pleased with my theory

Both of mine were ebf and very calm, contented babies. They really didn't cry all that much. Lots of people spontaneously commented on their calm temperaments at the time.

Stastistics, schmatistics.

Breastfed babies don't tend to have a dummy shoved in their mouths 24/7 and are therefore free to express their displeasure loudly and at will (and my DD certainly did and continued to do so). The study doesn't seem to have asked if dummies were used which is a major omission IMO.

Also breastfed babies are supposed to be more intelligent aren't they? Therefore less likely to just accept life for what it is and more determined to grow up more quickly than their bodies will allow. That's what I tell myself about my "challenging" DD anyhow

'breastfed babies are supposed to be more intelligent aren't they?'

gaelicsheep- i ope your tongue is firmly in your cheek?

It most certainly is!

I'm just bitter and twisted because I have one of those challenging breastfed babies! Wouldn't have her any other way though.

I would add that my DS was mix fed and fully on formula from around 4 months. He was an easy baby in comparison with DD (but only in hindsight, any baby is easy compared with DD) but he is an extremely challenging 5 year old.

The article was pants.

It's probably already been said but the "study" was about 300 mothers, some EBF, some FF and some mix so not a big amount of people to study either as the whole group or as the three smaller groups. It was a questionnaire that they were given to fill in so the answers are going to be pretty subjective. Saying "my baby cries a lot" and the next person saying "my baby doesn't cry a lot" doesn't mean much because it might be the other way around but the way the parents percieve it is different.

It seems like some people had some time/ money to waste and did it by sending out 300 pointless questionnaires. I'm not sure that this is going to do much for breastfeeding stats, unfortunately.

i agree with the article
i am sooo jealous of calm serene bottle fed weans...

i like to over generalise as - like you- there has to be some reason for the skriking baby!!

Thanks for that explanation, TruthSweet, I'd always wondered how breast milk is produced by the body and how nutrients are transmitted. It's confusing when public health advocates just parrot 'breast is best', unequivocally, but they never give any details about the biology of breast milk.

When I say 'an awful diet' I mean, a Western style junk food diet, high in salt, saturated fats and sugar. I would have thought that breast milk produced by a mother who subsists on KFC, fizzy drinks and takeaways would be less nutritious for a baby than breast milk produced by a mother who eats fresh fruit and vegetables and an iron-rich diet etc. Yet studies never seem to look at the mother's diet, they seem to assume that breast milk is breast milk. If breast milk is like sweat, doesn't sweat differ between people as well? If you take in a lot of salt and don't stay hydrated, your sweat is saltier. Would it be the same with breast milk? If so, would high-salt breast milk be harmful?

I just know from experience that my breast milk was clearly not always the same day-in, day-out. Sometimes it looked fattier than other days, sometimes it seemed stickier and more sugary and my son definitely reacted sometimes after particular food or drinks that I had. It would be good to have more information on the details of breast milk production and the effect of the mother being in poor health (e.g. obese, diabetic) on the milk she produces.

HouseworkProcrastinator - although it's massively tempting to think so, I really don't think the type of milk a baby drinks is going to affect its actual personality!

DC1 is, and always has been a very gregarious, independent child - goes off without a backward look for me and has always been thus.

DC2 is a total mummy's child, so much more clingy and will only be placated by me.

Both were EBF well beyond a year.

I put the difference in their temperaments down to different personalities. DC2 was hardly going to suddenly become less clingy by virtue of being fed cow's milk in a bottle, and DC1 somehow manages to not rely on me utterly, in spite of being breast fed for a long time.

The only people I know who have breast fed have adopted or are latino....so cultural taboo against bf perhaps for them.
I realize some people just cannot bf but I noticed far more ff babies when I visited the uk........so lots must choose it as preferable there in comparison.
My experience is people are perceived as uneducated in the US if they actually choose ff rather unless they have medical reasons to ff.

Sorry .....the only people not bf ing are Latino or have adopted.people are a little embarrassed to admit they give a bottle of ff at night to supplement amongst the 3o odd mums I have met and chatted to.

More challenging?! What rot. Better able to tell their mums what they want and need, more like.

From what I've read quickly about this I think it's another example of not taking all factors into account and drawing simplistic conclusions from social research.

Mothers who choose to BF and mothers who choose to FF will have a variety of social and personal differences. Their perceptions of their babies contentment is quite likely to be different.

For one thing I think BFing mothers are more likely (on the whole) to be better tuned into their babies and so more likely to report any perceived needs of their babies.

Any differences here could be down to a whole variey of factors and as usual with social research I find these haven't even begun to be thoroughly explored !

My first reaction to reading this article was .

I think this ""Mothers who breastfeed may perceive that other people's formula-fed babies are more content, " probably says a lot. I do think that some mothers who bf will jump to thinking that a baby crying is related to a problem with bf-ing (a thought often suggested/encouraged by others who the mother turns to for support) whereas a ff-ing mother doesn't automatically consider that feeding is the problem.

Study seems to have forgotten about people like me who bf and expressed to use in a botte later. Or does that count as exclusively bf?

Slinkingoutsideinsocks - probably isn't down to that I know, i know there has been theories that stress while in the womb can create a stressy baby too and at time of being pregnant with number 1 we were moving house, moving country and partner changing job. But then again she probably was always going to be a terror regardless.

I only say I would bottle feed because of the change in the second after feeding, but it's a mute point as I am NEVER having another one.

Do really miss the breast feeding tho... :(

BFing is fab and I don't like seeing it knocked like this.

I am suspicious of the motives of those behind it ...

I think I heard it was sponsored by Mothercare. Now, there are such strict guidelines, quite rightly, on the advertising of FF and it's associated products, that I think Mothercare may have found subsidising a bit of cheap research was a very handy way to get those bottles flying off it's shelves.

I've drawn the thread to the attention of MNHQ as I'm not happy to see the words
"Breast-feeding babies - More "challenging" ?" in our MN discussions of the day.

It's just cheap propaganda for the evil FF manufacturers (and promoters)

I think mothers' expectations of what's normal behaviour in a baby are shaped by the culture they're raising their babies in. We live in a ff culture, and the normal behaviour of a breastfed baby which involves frequent feeding is probably often seen seen as being dysfunctional, when it's not.

Women raising babies in a culture where feeding to a routine is seen as being desirable and expected may find it hard to adjust to the rhythms of healthy and normal breastfeeding.

I wonder how many breastfed babies are truly being fed on demand? And how many are not feeding as often or as long as they want, because of mothers anxieties and expectations of what should be happening.

If that's the case, that not all breastfed babies are actually being breastfed in an optimal way, then it's no surprise if more breastfed babies are unsettled.

On a personal note, I breastfed all my babies on demand and very, very frequently. All three were exceptionally easy to look after babies, including my youngest ds, who has since been diagnosed with ASD, and has turned into a less than easy child.

Interesting that despite the interpretation (in the article) of bf babies crying more and being more difficult, other studies have shown bf babies to exhibit "better behaviour" (whatever you take that to mean) and fewer attachment problems when older. In the case of this link, at the age of 5 www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13336986

What annoys me more than anything about this is that ALL the reports seem to have put the perceived negative element in the title e.g. on the BBC "Breastfed babies 'are more cranky and cry more'". Then they go on to say that actually it might be because the FF babies are overfed yadda yadda.

Why is the bench mark what FF babies do? Why didn't they make the headline "FF babies probably overfeed".

I just get so fed up with it all. Tedious.