Susan,
I appreciate the reflection you make on several important point of 
"evidence-based" medicine and related subjects, they are quite interesting.

I would like to point out, however, that to include a study that  shows 
that "parents" sleep less if the baby is bottlefed, when discussing the 
issue of whether the breastfed baby or the bottle fed baby sleeps 
longer, seems a sort of "wrong question/answer", in the sense that it 
answer the question "will I (mother) sleep longer if I give a bottle to 
my baby?", but does not answer the question "will my baby sleep longer 
if I (mother) give him a bottle?". I had the impression you were 
comparing studies on how formula influence the sleep pattern of babies, 
and that study in my opinion does not give you that answer, not, at 
least, according to the conclusion you present.
Therefore, I see no discrepancy in the two studies you report.

I point this out because the importance of asking the correct question 
was discussed, and I saw a good example of  how question and answer may 
not always be perfectly matched!
 I have not seen these studies myself, though, so I am arguing just form 
the information you give and at a theoretical level.

However, as far as I remember, formula fed babies sleep longer stretches 
of time and are less wakeful on average than breastfed b. (Elias et al. 
1986, Ball 2003, Quilin & Glenn 2004), but mothers do not - 
breastfeeding is associated with better and longer sleep of parents 
(same study you talk about).
The other study you quote may be bringing new insight or new findings 
into the subject (=that previous findings may have been wrong), but as 
far as I know, the fact that formula fed b. sleep longer is not a myth, 
but "evidence-based" information.
We can discuss if the evidence is a solid one (I did not read the study, 
I do not know).

Thank you for the opportunity for some interesting reasoning.

Warmly,
Micaela
LLL Leader,
Italy

Susan Burger ha scritto:
> One research paper that shows that parents who give a bottle of formula or more a night sleep 40-45 minutes LESS a night than parents whose baby is allowed to breastfeed

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