Breast feeding vs bottle feeding patterns

[ScotHill]

Does anyone have experience of both breast feeding and bottle feeding either with the same child or with siblings?

Ours is breast feeding at the moment and for much of the time treating it like an all day buffet, whinging and snacking when he wants, often falling asleep while feeding but only for a short period of time which means he may not be getting a decent extended nap later in the day.

Whereas the evening bedtime bottle, he knocks back 150ml in 10-15 minutes and that's it, he's asleep for 4-5 hours. We don't do daytime bottles, and at this point wouldn't really want to.

He's almost 3 months so a full bottle feeding pattern would be 150ml 6-8 times a day. For those who bottle fed, did your kids stick fairly rigidly to this schedule, or would they refuse parts of some bottles and then whinge for me later? Would they fall asleep while feeding?

For those with breast-fed children, did you ever have to stop them falling asleep while feeding? Did it help?

[JapanRed]

We only ever breast fed with first two. Third due in 3 weeks and my wife will try and do same.

Obviously can’t compare with bottle feeding but I’m a firm believer in short term pain for long term pain. The benefits of breast over bottle are well publicised and indisputable. If you can breastfeed, I’d say stick with it if you can.

[shouldbworking]

You might be mixing up hunger feeding with comfort feeding. At that age breast feeding is a very reliable way of calming a baby that's upset for whatever reason.

Worth considering the wonder weeks app to get an insight into what might be going on in baby's head. Not sure how much truth is in it but it's been surprisingly reliable at predicting fussy phases.

[wrencho]

In my experience you are doing well to mix the two methods!

Our eldest would ONLY feed from mum. Even as he grew a bit he wouldn't accept a bottle from me, even with expressed milk in it. He used to go bananas for over an hour until he got what he wanted. Little st :-)

[littlegreenfairy]

It may be that they are getting the milk quicker from the bottle than the breast which is why you get 150ml down and they are passed out.

From what I’ve seen/know/experienced at this age they feed when they are hungry and should be fed on demand. A growth spurt means they will feed forever.

I remember feeding mine almost solidly for an entire day. It nearly broke me.

And yes they fall asleep whilst feeding both breast and bottle.

Edited by littlegreenfairy on Monday 1st November 19:52

[littlegreenfairy]

shouldbworking said:

You might be mixing up hunger feeding with comfort feeding. At that age breast feeding is a very reliable way of calming a baby that's upset for whatever reason.

Worth considering the wonder weeks app to get an insight into what might be going on in baby's head. Not sure how much truth is in it but it's been surprisingly reliable at predicting fussy phases.

I (and I’m willing to be proven wrong) feel the app is a load of bull. You’ll find a pattern if you look for it. Everyone has it drummer into them that every baby is different and then suddenly an app tells you exactly how it should be.

[ChocolateFrog]

Exclusively breastfed our two, well my other half has. Hats off to all the women that do because it's no walk in the park, mastitis, thrush, biting, exclusively doing the night duty with no sleep etc, etc

Feeding can be sporadic, if they're cluster Feeding it could be as bad as 15-20 mins every hr, throughout the day. If the baby's ill then it can be not at all and the other half has to express just to stop the pain from them being so full.

Under 6 months then 2 to 4 night feeds was typical for us. If everyone's playing ball then it's a quick pull them into bed, 15 min feed then off back to sleep for another 3 hours. After 6 months there's solid food supplements so if we're lucky he just wakes up once in the middle of the night.

Even after all that we still feel the benefits far outweigh the negatives. The convenience of being able to feed anywhere and everywhere at a moments notice, I don't think either of us would have coped very well with preparing bottles and everything that entails.

We also had no luck trying a bottle. Didn't matter if it was breastmilk or formula and we tried 2 or 3 different teats atleast. It seem if you get them on one, you're doing well to get them to take another.

Edited by ChocolateFrog on Monday 1st November 20:13

[ScotHill]

littlegreenfairy said:

It may be that they are getting the milk quicker from the bottle than the breast which is why you get 150ml down and they are passed out.

From what I’ve seen/know/experienced at this age they feed when they are hungry and should be fed on demand. A growth spurt means they will feed forever.

I remember feeding mine almost solidly for an entire day. It nearly broke me.

And yes they fall asleep whilst feeding both breast and bottle.

Edited by littlegreenfairy on Monday 1st November 19:52

Thanks, that last sentence was probably what I was looking for. A bottle is handy to give mum a break, it's either a bottle of formula or a bottle of gin!

For what it's worth, with the first one I followed the Wonder Weeks book (which has many debunkers) for a few months before realising my normally-developing son would be getting an F Minus by their standards, a lot of the milestones seemed incredibly advanced. With the second one I'm not bothered at all, if he's fussy now he won't be in a week or two, and vice versa.

[tendown]

I seem to remember the key to avoiding sleeping on the breast was to keep to the order - sleep, feed, awake time. Its easier said than done as you need to work out another way of getting them to sleep.

This - https://www.littleones.co/ - helped us with the sleep, I'm sceptical of anything that charges desperate parents.... I think we paid for a month and got the jist of it

This puts into perspective the way the sleep/feed chaos settles into routine over time https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/...