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 eldest bottle fed - terrible sleeper, she’s 20 and still is! Co-slept until we eventually got her into her own room at 3 but still would end up in our bed at some pont ! Youngest breastfeed slept well - of to sleep easily and slept - never co-slept - she once came in following a bad dream had a cuddle and happily went back into her room 5 mins later!

Do what works for you as a family! I know I was very relieved that my 2nd slept. I do think it’s also what the baby is like and my eldest is still such a bad sleeper and suffers from nightmares and very unsettled sleeping patterns.

I think the key point is a key differential between FF and BF is someone else can do a feed to give mum a decent sleep period.This was gold to me.

I do think there is a huge need to build up more supports of information for what is typical for a BF baby as there is a deficit.

In my family we are up to four generations who bottle fed. If I had have chosen BF then I really would have been starting from scratch with limited information.

I had one ff baby and then bf baby. They were both crap at sleeping.

OP - were you co sleeping? The whole "don't co-sleep" thing that the NHS pushed was unbelievably cruel to mothers. Co sleeping makes it all 100x easier.

My friend used to give a large bottle of expressed milk to her baby before bed. She said that using the bottle meant the baby took more in in one go so did a really long stretch of sleep every night.

That might be a good solution which means you don't have to rely on formula?

She did also say she regretted introducing the bottle as early as she did because it made latching really painful. So that's something to watch out for.

Can't compare but my ff baby slept 12hrs nightly

I BF two and they were awful sleepers.

If i had another I would FF i think as the no sleep was a killer

Eldest was formula fed. Numerous wake ups and didn't sleep through the night properly until 2y 2m. Nearly 3 and back to not sleeping through again!

Second is ebf and 8 months old. Wakes up 4/5 times per night. I think some babies wake up and some won't. Nothing to do with how they're fed 🤷‍♀️.

I don't think there is a difference
Just babies and their sleep can vary

I bottle fed first child, breast fed second and third child was breast fed for eight weeks then bottle fed. All three slept really well with a feed at around 10pm when I went to bed then a top up for a few weeks at around 3 to 4 am - this top up stopped for all of them after three or four months.

But I know I was very lucky to have three good sleepers, at one point I was able to get all three down at the same time for an afternoon nap and then to bed by 7.30 ( when I sat down to watch Eastenders!). They all had afternoon sleeps until they started school.

I have no idea how I managed this, it was in the 1080s and I think parents just expected our children to sleep so I guess I left them to whimper or cry briefly before going to them so they learnt to self settle. I did not leave them to cry for long even though my FIL kept telling me I ought to!

In the 1980s