Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Sleep plays a vital role in a baby's growth, brain development, and overall well-being. Limited evidence have shown that feeding types can shape how their baby sleeps. This study looked at whether three types of feeding, donor human milk (DHM), formula milk (FM), and exclusive breastfeeding (EBF), influence sleep in full-term newborns whose mothers received antibiotics during giving birth to prevent Group B Streptococcus (GBS) infection. We followed families who planned to breastfeed after giving birth vaginally and who received these antibiotics. Parents and babies were randomly assigned to receive DHM or formula whenever extra milk was needed during the first week. Babies who were exclusively breastfed were also included as a comparison group. Parents completed short sleep questionnaires when their babies were 6, 12, and 24 weeks old to help us understand changes in sleep over time. Across all groups, babies naturally slept for longer stretches at night as they grew. On average, nighttime sleep increased by about 6-7 minutes each week. Babies in the DHM group showed the quickest improvement in sustaining longer nighttime sleep. EBF infants woke up less often and developed the most stable day-night sleep patterns. FM babies slept about 40 minutes more during the day but about 30 minutes less at night, and they were more likely to co-sleep with their parents, which may reflect more reports of nighttime waking or feeding needs. By 24 weeks, about half of the DHM babies and one-third of EBF babies usually slept independently, compared with only 8% of formula-fed babies. Although the differences between the three feeding groups were not statistically significant, we observed patterns that may be noticeable to parents in real-life settings. Human milk groups showed more independent and consolidated sleep, while FM babies had slightly more fragmented sleep. More research with a larger sample size is needed to understand how early feeding types may shape infant sleep.