Fed up & completely drained

[ab00]

Ds2 is just 8 months,bf, total bottle & dummy refuser. We have battled through hideous silent reflux (although in my experience not very bloody silent at all with hours of screaming), tt, several bad colds (cue the worsening / reappearance of reflux) several bouts of teething & severe constipation (him not me )all resulting in him being massively unsettled, particularly at night. He then wants more feeds, cuddles at night.

We've got the constipation sorted & he's on medication for it now. Sleep & night feeds improved & went back to 2 wakings, on waking number 2 at 5 - 6am ish he'd come into bed with me so can feed lying down & maximise rest as ds1 wakes from 6.30 onwards.

The last 2 night have been some of the worst yet. He's awake within 50 minutes of being put down, only a feed will do. Tried cuddling, rocking, ssshhhing, singing but throws himself around & cries & screams. Settles one fed. He then wakes every 1 - 2 hours. Each time, with the exception of one, only feeding would settle him. Last night at 2am he came into bed with me & pretty much hung off my boob until 5am. Dh transferred him to his cot & he woke again at 6.30 so back in bed feeding again.

He won't go to dh & screams & sobs when dh tries to comfort him. Dh told me he looks at my side of the bed & the door looking for me.

I have no idea what's going on. We thought teething pain, as he is teething but pain relief doesn't help. He's on 3 meals a day, blw as wouldn't let us put a spoon in his mouth. His solids are staying to increase as he's dropped milk in the day. Could he be making up for it at night? It's taken ages to get him to drink water out of a cup, some goes in loads is dribbled out.I'm exhausted & completely mentally & physically drained by it all, I don't want to stop bf as it's something I really wanted to do for him but I also feel like it's never going to get better. I really want to enjoy this time with him as I know it's such a short period in their lives but it's just been so relentless with feeding, never being settled & worrying about him I've lost all hope.

have you tried cutting out dairy? he sounds a lot like my little boy and we thought he might have silent reflux but it turned out he was reacting to dairy in my milk....

no harm in trying it for a couple of weeks just to see? if no difference at least you've ruled something out :)

We tried that, I far as possible, in the early days before the reflux diagnosis. After his tt was cut it massively improved but gp advised illness & teething can cause it to flair up even if symptom free the rest of the time.

Did your ds react to dairy in solids? Ds is only unsettled at night & has had periods of really good sleep when both of us have eaten dairy? Could it still be the dairy?

Any other thoughts anyone?

Could it be some kind of developmental spurt thing? Both of mine had massive sleep regressions around 8/9/10 months, followed by them both making huge leaps in standing/cruising/babbling. Waking up all the time, wanting to feed more at night, really clingy and whiny, then it just stopped as suddenly as it began.

I'd wondered about that, but not sure. He gets annoyed on the floor that he can't get something he out of his reach but hasn't starred crawling.

Trying to settle him when he wakes has been much harder & taken longer & when he wakes he's been quite upset, normally I just hear him fidgeting.