ear infections in almost 11 month old

[rhetorician]

DD2 has had an ongoing ear infection really since about August - she has had 2 courses of ABs, and whilst she improves on these, the symptoms just recur. The last GP visit (we are in Ireland, so have to pay for GP) we were given a prescription but advised to try and see if she could fight it off before filling it - this seems eminently sensible. BUT - the problem is that it is majorly impacting her (and therefore our) sleep to the point where our previously fairly good sleeper (one wake-up sleeping in cot at 6 months) is now a serial waker-upper -night-feeder- insisting on being in bed with us. We can't sleep train her while she is clearly in pain and under the weather.

Does anyone have any ideas? I don't want to keep putting her on courses of ABs unless necessary (the infections aren't severe I don't think - they wake her up, she pokes at her ear, but no temp, no loss of appetite, little impact when she is up and about), but can't see any alternative.

FWIW her words are coming now, often missing part - but she's not yet one so can't read anything into that

[beautifulgirls]

I would ask for an ENT referral to be honest and get her ears looked at properly. Recurrent issues like that could mean that she needs grommets.

[rhetorician]

yes, I think that will be our next step; to be fair GP is going to ask ENT consultant at children's hosp informally (a friend of hers), so we will go from there

[Jemstone]

I had that with my ds at about the same age. Lasted 3 months in total until I asked for them to take a swab of the fluid coming out. Turns out it was resistant to the common antibiotics! Doctor said she was about to refer us to ent if it hadn't cleared up once we got the right antibiotics for the infection.

My main regret is that he was fine during the day and not showing any classic symptoms so I didn't take it seriously enough (hence it lasting for 3 months). The sleep deprivation probably didn't help with my decision making either

[rhetorician]

thanks Jemstone - yes, dd2 is mostly fine during the day particularly as she is interested in everything around and distracted from it. As well as being upright