Sleep difference between a breastfed baby and bottle fed?

[August21yellowbaby]

I breastfed my son for 6 months. He woke up hourly (atleast) the whole time
I noticed other mums who bottle fed that they're babies slept much better.

I would love to breastfeed again and will definitely do it for the newborn phase BUT I can't lie, I completely lost myself after a few months of it. I was getting never getting sleep because he woke up atleast once an hour. I actually gave up going to bed because I couldn't bare being woken up. My mental health was extremely bad and I didn't want to live.

I'm pregnant and I'm terrified of getting that sleep deprived again, the hallucinations that came with that were terrifying.

So my question is, bottle fee and breast fed, which slept abit better?

For me as long as I get 4 hours uninterrupted sleep I can function

My first was bottle fed from 3weeks. He woke every 45mins but couldn’t settle him as he didn’t want milk. This went on for 13months.
my second born EBF, he slept well for the first 12 weeks with 2 wake ups for feeds, then went downhill but I coped as I just fed him every time he woke and we could both sleep.
I was definitely more sane second time round

Breastfed my first two. Very little sleep. Was rocking #2 to sleep one night after no sleep in days and was so tired I thought I was holding a heavy bag of potatoes and thought to myself "why am I holding a heavy bag of potatoes? I should put this out in the garden because potatoes live in the dark". My feet touched the grass before I realised my baby wasn't a sack of potatoes that I should bury - so honestly, I GET the sleep deprivation.

#3 I tried breastfeeding. But I was a single parent then with two toddlers, and she was classed as "failure to thrive" because she lost her birth weight and still wasn't back up to birth weight by her 6 week check. So I switched to formula. She slept 7pm-7am every single night from 6 weeks. Honestly never woke. Easiest baby ever.

That's anecdote, not data, but yes, I do think formula fed babies sleep better. It doesn't have to be either/or though. You could try a bottle of formula at bedtime only for a while and see how you get on. But there's no shame in how you decide to feed your baby - fed is best, happy sane mum is best. My formula fed baby gets ill less than my breastfed ones, she's stronger/smarter etc. It means fuck all at the end of the day, so whatever makes your life easiest, just do it.

My three were all bottle fed and were terrible sleepers.

I’ve breastfed three and bottle fed two - they’ve been an absolute mixed bag sleep wise. It’s totally personality imo rather than feeding.

I breastfed both my kids initially and my first was always a better sleeper than my second. So I don't think it made any difference. And neither of them were particularly bad sleepers waking hourly or anything like that even when breastfed.

My breastfed baby slept better than my formula fed baby. What I did notice was that my breastfed baby slept better when she had a 10.30pm bottle of formula.
My formula fed baby woke every hour but benefit was that other people could take him for 3-4 hours so I could sleep so DH did until midnight with him and on weekends 6-10am.

Formula isn’t more filling or anything like that. I have a theory that it’s a bit of a faff to make a bottle isn’t it versus just whacking the baby on the boob so you’re more likely to try other means to the settle the baby first and if they work you’ll hopefully get into a routine of less feeds at night and more during the day. You might give it a minute to see if they settle back to sleep and be pleasantly surprised. I don’t think even safe cosleeping is as safe when formula feeding so maybe you’re more likely to persist with the cot which is harder initially but probably easier when baby is older. I also think that there’s more of a separation of feeding and comfort so the bottle literally is just food and you’re possibly less likely to get a feed to sleep dependence.

But really the main thing is that it’s not all on you. As long as you have a half decent partner, you can say to your DH that it’s his turn tonight and take yourself off to the spare bed with earplugs and get an uninterrupted night’s sleep.

The thing about breast feeding is that it's easier to feed back to sleep.....

I bf my 3dc and all had different sleep patterns (although all were pretty good sleepers) and from friends who bottle fed more than one child, again sleep patterns were different.

I know a lot of people aren't keen but with my youngest we did co-sleeping as he was a more frequent feeder and that meant I got a decent amount of sleep.

Echoing an earlier poster that in my experience it's the personality not the food that makes for an easy baby. My first was bottlefed and slept through the night from 6 weeks old, easiest baby ever! Second was bf and screamed continuously, never slept more than 30 minutes. I convinced myself it was because of the breastfeeding so swapped to bottle when she was about 16 weeks old and it made not a jot of difference! She didn't sleep through the night until she was 2. Now they're both teen/pre-teen and I can quite clearly see that it's their personalities that was the deciding factor! DC2 still cries all the bloody time! DC1 is still very chilled out. I regret giving up breastfeeding enormously.

You could try mix feeding, formula at night and breast milk in the day. It’s what we’re doing through necessity rather than a desire to but it is working.

Both of mine were bottle fed, both big C
10lbs and slept very quickly through, C. 5 weeks or so. I think it was partially their size and ability to fill their tummies.

Also because it was bottle fed parents could alternate so each got a minimum of 8 hours sleep. I was very lucky but consciously decided to FF to ensure maximum sleep to reduce chance of pnd, (family history).

My first was combi fed to 6months then formula only. Second ebf - never took a bottle - to 15 months. Second slept beautifully, first hardly slept at all.
I don't think the feeding method has any impact at all.

As far as I've heard, parents actually get less sleep with ff babies than ebf babies but I would be curious to know if that's actually due to breastfeeding parents being more open to cosleeping whereas other parents are getting up to prepare a bottle anyway? So I think the notion that ff babies sleep better is a bit of a myth.

Babies are designed to wake up a lot during the night, it actually helps protect against SIDS and it helps them feel secure learning that you're still there close by.

Things I found helped were napping between dh coming in from work and baby's bedtime or napping during the day when baby napped. A soother helped ds settle between nursing/ feeding and sometimes he'd go back over immediately when given it if it fell out?

Another option if you want to breastfeed is to express milk and then have a night or two each week where your partner uses that to feed baby during the night so you can have a straight sleep through and then pump before bed and in the morning? We do that when one of us is particularly tired/ under the weather. One will sleep in the nursery with ds and the other will sleep in our bedroom without the monitor. Dh also takes ds for me on Saturday and Sunday mornings, does breakfast and takes him for a walk so I can sleep in. Have you considered co sleeping so baby could latch on and feed while you doze? It sounds silly probably but I noticed a huge difference in my energy levels when I was consistently taking my breastfeeding multivitamins and when i didn't for a period, for me they help as well.

Is it worth scoping out your support network now and identifying who could take baby for you for an hour or two so you can sleep to avoid things getting so tough again. It sounds like you had an awful time last round, hopefully this time will be different!

Science says no.

https://www-2018.swansea.ac.uk/press-office/news-archive/2015/sleeplessnightsnewresearchfindsbabiesshouldwakeatnight.php

Bf 4 babies. 1st slept in 3 hour stints till she was 4 now we are lucky if she sleeps for 5 hours. She's adhd.
2nd was so rubbish every 45 mins
3rd was about 4 hours
4th sleeps almost all night with usually one wake up.
The personality are all different my 4th is the most chill baby ever. My 2nd sleeps well now.
Deffo going to ff my 5th as I just dislike me being the only one who can plus my boobs need a well deserved break.

I don’t know if it is just me but I don’t bother getting up to make a bottle and just use ready made formula.

A lot of people can’t afford to use ready made all the time as it’s much more expensive.

I used a mix of ready made and powder generally with mine when I bottle fed, but one of them got a really upset stomach if you chopped and changed too often so couldn’t have done one ready made every night.

I breastfed both of mine; one of them was a terrible sleeper and the other was a very good sleeper.

I've got 2 kids, have only ever breastfed. First baby was kind of ok. Breastfed until 16.5 months.

Second woke hourly for 11 months. Kind of similar experience to yours. I felt awful and mentally and physically really suffered. It was so hard.

Second is 17 months now and she thankfully started sleeping through at 11 months and very abruptly decided she'd had enough of breastfeeding a month after that - so it's not like there was a direct link between her breastfeeding and sleeping because as I said the sleep came first.

The sleep deprivation hell honestly all feels like a distant memory now and I'm glad it's over forever! Things are so much better now and we are all so happy.

I know formula fed babies who woke loads at night too so I do think it's luck of the draw.

I immediately started getting four solid hours of sleep when we started giving baby DD a bottle at 4 weeks. She didn't sleep differently - my DH could look after her from 10pm feed (I'd breastfeed then go to bed in the spare room, leaving him to settle her to sleep). He'd give her a bottle at the next wake up. Saved my sanity.

Two of mine were EBF and the third had to have a top up bottle of formula. We gave him this at midnight and I think it did help my sleep because he would go down for a solid four hours and I just felt a bit less drained.

My DD is 2.5 and has just started sleeping through the night 2 weeks ago. She is still breastfed.

But I hear about loads of kids her age waking at night, I think it's pretty common regardless of what feeding choice you chose when they were a baby.

I would look into co-sleeping, I was being driven mad until we started doing this at 4mo. I couldn't understand how other women were managing to breastfeed... this is how!!

Feel so sorry for the me that didn't know and struggled picking her up and putting her down for hours and hours on end all night for weeks and weeks. It was horrible. Co-sleep. It is perfectly safe if done correctly.

Also DD asked to go in her own bed in her own room at 2y3m, zero pressure from me, so all the nonsense people come out with about how you'll never get them out of your bed... it's just that - nonsense!

Breastfed for the first few weeks.
Then bottle fed, 14 hours a night sleep from about 8 weeks old with no night feeds. Before that I fed her a night bottle at 10pm in her sleep. She’s still doing 12-14 hours now at 8months old