Will Supplementing Or Switching To Formula Help Your Breastfeeding Baby Sleep?

There are no prizes for guessing what is better for your baby – Breast milk or formula? Every mother knows that when it comes to better nutrition, breast milk wins hands down. It is natural, loaded with essential nutrients, and free of cost. Of course, some mothers may not be able to breastfeed at all due to various conditions, which is when formula milk comes into the picture as a savior. But, there may be times, when even a perfectly fine, breastfeeding mother might start considering switching to or supplementing with formula. Reason? Frequently waking up at night to feed the baby, which might leave the mother exhausted. And, in order to improve this situation, she’s often advised to make a switch to formula or top-off the breastmilk with formula. Topping off means feeding your baby formula just before he/she falls asleep. So, does this advice really help? Let us discuss this further.

So, When Should You Consider Making The Switch?

The answer depends on what exactly is the real issue. If you are genuinely having a breastmilk production issue and realize that your baby isn’t feeding well, then switching to formula might help. However, before assuming, look for certain tell-tale signs before you conclude that you are not producing enough milk. If your baby has fewer wet diapers, not gaining weight, or looks weak and lethargic instead of being active, all this could mean that your baby is under-fed. And, then you can discuss with your doctor and switch to formula. Having said this, if your own lack of sleep is the reason to make the switch, then you need to reconsider the decision. If your baby is nursing well and gaining the required growth milestones, then there may be other reasons for the baby waking up frequently at night.

This apart, a recent study revealed that breastfeeding mothers and bottle-feeding mothers had the same amount of sleep. The study concluded that whether it was for breastfeeding or bottle feeding, both the group of mothers woke up for nearly the same number of times at night resulting in similar sleep patterns. In fact, both considered themselves to be equally exhausted (1).

Does Switching To Or Supplementing With Formula Really Help Baby Sleep Better?

Now let us come to the most important part – does the switch help your baby sleep better? Many believe that formula-fed babies sleep better during the night. Well, there may be a grain of truth to this assumption. The fact is that breastmilk is more easily digestible than formula. Breastmilk contains, apart from other essential nutrients, two classes of protein – casein and whey. While casein curdles in the stomach, whey remains as a liquid making it easy to digest. Formula too contains the same classes of proteins. However, they are generally high in casein, making it harder for babies to digest it (2). Since formula requires more digestion time, the baby may not feel an empty stomach as early as compared to a breastfed baby. This makes a formula-fed baby sleep for a longer period of time.

Fix The Sleep Issue, Not Food!

Now you know that changing the ‘kind’ of food your baby feeds does not exactly impact sleep. And we also know the reason why breastfed babies wake up more often than formula-fed babies (casein being the culprit, most probably). So, the solution lies in fixing the sleep patterns rather than changing the food source. Some studies have been conducted to find a correlation between the sleep-wake pattern and mother-baby sleeping arrangements. It has been concluded that in situations where breastfeeding mothers co-slept with the baby, the mother got to sleep more and was less exhausted. The reason being that while co-sleeping with the baby, the mother was able to promptly feed the baby on-demand and pacify him/her quickly. In its conclusion, a study even recommended that safe co-sleeping methods should be developed to help breastfeeding mothers obtain more sleep (3).

We hope that this discussion helped you in making an informed decision regarding whether or not to switch to formula. While the decision rests on you, we’d still like to recommend that you continue to breastfeed your baby as much as possible. Because even little amount of breastfeeding is better than no breastfeeding at all. And for a better sleep, just safely lie next to your baby and snore away to glory!

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