is there a link between formula and sleep?

[cheapandchic]

my husband insists that if we give a bottle of formula at the 10pm feed, to our 6 month old breast fed baby that it will make her sleep better.

her sleep has been horrible for about a month now. has anyone mix fed and found that it helps sleep??

My DD slept better after BF than FF! But, on occasion DP did give a bottle so that I could sleep. Does your baby take a bottle?You could try and introduce a bottle if you are not anti FF. Are you planning on giving a bottle for other reasons anyway? If not, is it worth it, as advice is to get rid of bottles by one year anyway. How is weaning going? Maybe a nice late meal before a big final BF would help?

I haven't started weaning yet. She is 24 weeks...not sitting up really so I thought I would wait a little bit more. maybe not?

I've not mixed fed, but my 8mo DD is FF.

I can count the number of times she has slept through on one hand. Listen to your instinct

HTH

If the friends I know who breastfeed and introduced a bottle it's made no difference. In fact some have found it's upset baby's tummy so they are up as baby has griping pains. I have found similar with weaning.

Oh no, deffo don't start weaning if she isn't showing signs. She might end up, up all night with tummy ache! IME it's only once they start eating quite a lot that it can help anyway. Like formula as many people say solids help, as people who say it makes no difference

In my (limited) experience it makes no difference. I have three children, all FF. Two have always been brilliant sleepers and one has always woken much more frequently. I think they are just all different. Even as adults we all have different sleep patterns and some of us drop of to sleep more easily. Sadly, I don't think there is anything that magically produces sleep. The only thing I can think of is that she may be hungry. Maybe a banana with her last feed?

I mix fed ds, he has slept through since 8wo. I honestly don't know if there is a connection though.

This seems to be a good site on the actual evidence.
Not sure it covers mixed feeding though.
www.isisonline.org.uk/

Don't wean just yet if she's not ready - 26 weeks is technically 6 months (half of 52), but the signs also need to be there.

I'd say some FF do sleep for longer periods IF hunger is the only thing causing them to wake and not habit/teething/any other reason! That's because formula is harder to digest (being an artificial product) and stays in their tummies longer. But there are so many reasons why babies do or don't sleep through and formula is unlikely to be the key.

If you are keen to encourage your DD to sleep longer stretches at night you need to look at everything that's going on - naps, food intake over 24 hours, external factors e.g. temp in the room, is it too dark/light/noisy etc.

It did bugger all to improve DDs sleep.

DS woke exactly the same amount of time after a bottle of formula as he did after a BF. It just added the hassle of sterilising and getting the bottle ready.

i gave in and tried it last night when baby woke at midnight.

she lasted till 4.30. which husband said is better than every two hours.
I am not convinced. However I am pumping now and going to try a bottle of breast milk at midnight, purely so I can get some sleep.

I introduced mixed feeding at 5.5 months when I went back to work.

Did nothing to improve DS's sleep (during the day any rate, I still BF morning and night but he is a terrible napper)

Only thing that has had an immediate improvement on his sleep was when we started introducing porridge in the morning (aged 6.5months). His morning nap suddenly went from being 35 minutes (on a good day) to 60-120 minutes!

DH bugged me a fair bit about doing FF cos I was EBF and DS has reflux and doesn't sleep well...I dug my heels in a pointed out that if he has reflux with my natural milk then he probably will have the same problem with formula. Am very very glad I refused to FF before going back to work because it did nothing to improve the reflux or sleeping and actually DS doesn't like it very much - he prefers water!

And we have never managed to get DS to drink the right amount of formula (for his weight). It's a good "meal" if he drinks more than 100ml...he just seems designed to eat little and often ()

Does she self-settle? We had a totally crappy month when DD was 5 months, teaching self-settling with gradual withdrawal moved her from 5+ wakings to 2 within a week, and a couple of weeks later she was down to one. Loads of people suggested I should start weaning because she was probably hungry, but I thought that was rubbish (though we did start weaning anyway for other reasons). Never did formula but I've never seen any correlation between how much she ate and how well she slept.

last night gave a bottle of breast milk at midnight and she lasted till 5am.

this is an improvement so I will try again tonight. I think with a bottle she takes more rather than snacking for comfort at the breast all night...

how do you teach self settle? at 10pm she woke and a dummy helped...but in the middle of the night she doesn't want the dummy??

My ds is 9mo and ff since 7w. He has once slept through from 11-7.

The others were all bf then ff at various ages. They slept through (as in 7-7) from 6w, 7.5m and 16w.

IMO opinion there is little to indicate from that that there is any link with formula and sleep.

FWIW for other reasons I keep a diary on how much ds eats and when and some of the better nights we've had have not been the days where he's eaten most. Ie, as fififrog says - lots to eat does not necessarily = lots of sleep.