dairy allergy and night waking?

[softasshite]

is there any link between dairy allergy and night waking does anyone know?

my nearly 1 year old DS is still waking for a night feed every 3-4 hours. he's allergic to cows milk and goats milk so i'm still breast feeding, although occasionally supplement with soya milk. in the back of my mind, i tell myself that breastmilk is the only real option for him due to the concerns about soya, and the fact that he really doesn't like soya.

i think DS nightfeeds for both the milk (nutrition and hydration) and the comfort (he's always refused a dummy and doesn't suck his thumb). i'm rubbish at letting my kids "cry it out" in the night. but my DD1 just grew out of night feeds whilst my DS shows no signs of that. just interested in people's views about it.
thanks

For a breast-fed, co-sleeping baby, this kind of night-feeding is completely normal at his age, please don't worry. If you're happy to continue, then he will grow out of his night-feeds eventually (might be ages though).

My DS was same allrergies and waking at that age. At about then I was so exhausted and asked DP to sleep in his room and help him go back to sleep without the boob, it took about a week and after that I never fed him at night - sounds a bit mean but I was ready! He still had boob moring and evening until 15 months, but never really drunk the soya formulas - only used them for porridge etc.

In our case I think the frequent waking was a habit which had been formed at earlier age when he had severe, infected eczema and would wake from itching - it was truly awful. We swaddled for a long time as well because of the scratching and weaning ourselves off the swaddling was also a challenge. SO my theory with him is that he never really had the chance to learn to sleep through on his own at an earlier age. But then many people would say that some babies may still need / benefit from their night feeds later anyway.
You don't mention any itching (hope he escaped!) but for us the eczema and allergies were all linked.

I think that how much night feeds matter depend on how you feel about them - they are much worse if you are tired and starting to resent it, or comparing your baby with some other perfect sleeper and wondering if you've done something wrong. If the feeds are calm and baby goes back down easily they can be really nice - if its like this for you then I wouldn't worry too much about when he will outgrow them.

DS only started sleeping through the night at 14 months a couple of weeks after reducing dairy in his diet. Transformation on sleep was remarkable. Dairy intolerence could easily cause enough discomfort to wake a child. Night feeding is common when pain is associated with feeding, less concious of the pain.