While toddlers are more likely to be overweight if they were bottle-fed rather than breastfed, a new study suggests that this may be less to do with the feeding method and more to do with habits the infant picked up at a young age.

US scientists analysed data from over 8,000 families and found that infants who were fed baby formula in their first six months of life were 2.5 times more likely to become obese toddlers than babies who were breastfed.

They noted that ‘if you are overweight at age two, it puts you on a trajectory where you are likely to be overweight into middle childhood and adolescence and as an adult'.

However, they found that rather than this simply being about bottle versus breast, ‘there seems to be this cluster of infant feeding patterns that promote childhood obesity'.

They noted that introducing solids too early - before four months - increased the risk of obesity by 40%. Meanwhile, putting a baby to bed with a bottle increased the risk of obesity by 36%.

"Developing this pattern of needing to eat before you go to sleep, those kinds of things discourage children from monitoring their own eating patterns so they can self-regulate," the scientists from Brigham Young University explained.

They noted that the very nature of breastfeeding is geared towards letting babies recognise when they are full. However, they insisted that this skill can also be learned by bottle-fed babies.

"You can still do things even if you are bottle-feeding to help your child learn to regulate their eating practices and develop healthy patterns. When a child is full and pushes away, stop! Don't encourage them to finish the whole bottle," they said.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, Pediatric Obesity.