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I’ve been breastfeeding exclusively (my baby is five weeks old), but the sleep deprivation is brutal, and I feel like I would get more sleep if I switched to formula. Is there any data on this? Am I a bad mom if I even consider it?
—Tired of Being Tired
You are not a bad mom, period. There are many reasons why people choose to switch to formula or to combine formula and breast milk, and I’ve written a lot about how much we overstate the benefits of breast milk.
Second point: The sleep deprivation of new parenthood is extremely difficult for virtually everyone. It’s literally a form of torture. Recognizing this does not make it better, but it feels important to acknowledge that this is just hard.
On your particular question, we’ve got some new data from a recently published abstract. (An exciting part of this: a number of participants in the study were recruited from the ParentData audience. Thank you to those who participated so we can answer this question!)
The study has moms use their Fitbit to track sleep for a year postpartum, and the researchers measure total sleep and longest sleep duration. Although they see the whole first year, the abstract is focused on the period from 14 weeks through 52 weeks. Participants are separated into those who exclusively breastfeed for longer versus those who use formula or a mixed feeding approach.
The authors find that feeding mode does not affect total sleep duration but that those who are breastfeeding have (on average) about 0.4 hours less in their longest sleep stretch. The difference in this longest stretch persists through the first year of the child’s life.
These data suggest that introducing formula at some point could slightly increase your longest sleep stretch, although the effects are small. One reason for the overall impacts may be that with formula you can have a partner give a bottle, making it easier to split the night. This may be possible even if you are nursing, if you pump.
There is no magic bullet here, I’m afraid. It does get better.
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I’d be interested if there is a difference between those breast feeding and using formula when trying to do sleep training. If anyone knows of anything on this please let me know, thanks!
My two cents:
First, at least in early weeks, formula fed babies eat fewer times a day. So presumably that would allow for longer sleep stretches and more overall sleep.
Second, using formula allows someone else to give the bottle. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing proposition though (eg give only a couple of bottles per day). It is also important to split shifts without noise to get proper sleep. Doing both so far with a two month old was a life saver.
I’m curious about the results of the study. Whether the babies are already quite grown and have consolidated sleep at night already and/or partner not splitting who gives the bottle and proper noise protection when not « on ».
I find it very unhelpful and counterintuitive to answer the question “would I get more sleep if I switched to formula?” by looking to studies. If you switch to formula but are still solely responsible for night feedings, then yes, it’s not going to help much. If you switch to formula and your partner takes over a significant portion of the night feedings – and especially if you can sleep in a different room when they do – then it could make an enormous difference. A study obviously can’t tell you that.
My understanding of the basis of this question is with formula you can “stuff” them full. It’s easier to drink from a bottle since it comes out faster and often your supply is lowest at the end of the day. So by giving them more food ie formula the theory is they won’t get hungry as fast and will sleep longer which is what this study showed. Personally I found that my kiddos were able to eat at least 2 more ounces of pumped breastmilk or formula after my last feed. It seems like this is reflected in this study but the effects aren’t huge.