1 YO very constipated/ wakes up every hour at night

[Luna6609]

Hi,
My baby is 14 months now, and she has never slept through the night. She wakes up every hour crying until I give her milk which she uses for comfort and goes back to sleep. She has been doing this for atleast 6 months. Since I switched her formula to cows milk she wakes up even more during the night, crying like something is waking her up, then wants milk to settle back to sleep.
Since she has been on cows milk she is very constipated so her stools are really big and really hard, they are pale in colour, and hurt her so much she really struggles to get them out. I think she has an intolerance to diary? I have tried health visitors who seem to just fob it off as normal but surely it’s not normal being in so much pain.
I thought about maybe switching he back to stage 3 formula and see if that helps, please can I have your advice?

My 18 month old gets constipated on cows milk but toddler milk she is fine with. I would take her to a GP if she is very constipated though. If you suspect dairy intolerance I think you can get alpro toddler milk with added nutrients. We have something called melilax for quick relief from constipation but my daughters is not chronic only when she isn’t drinking enough water really.

Is she’s having stuff like fruit, dates, prunes, figs anything like that? Milk as a food is constipating. I’m not sure I’d presume milk allergy based on what you described here, but maybe there are other symptoms. I’d try really increasing her water intake, and upping the fruit a lot.

Other than being constipated does she have symptoms of a dairy intolerance? Standard formula milk is made from dairy so you'd expect symptoms to persist moving from cows milk to formula.

She may just be very uncomfortable from the constipation. What have you tried to relieve it? Does she eat plenty of fruit and veg and drink lots of water? If you're doing all you can with her diet it may be worth seeing the GP to query whether she needs medication for it but I'd try all the natural remedies first.

She must be drinking an awful lot of milk through the night if she's waking hourly and even trying all the above she might just be having too much milk for her digestive system to manage, could you try some gentle sleep training and try to wean her off the milk and get you both sleeping better?

Your GP can prescribe Lactulose to soften her stools, this will say least make going to the loo more comfortable for her. You need to keep up with whatever dose makes her poos soft but not runny, until she learns that going to the toilet isn't painful any more. This might be enough while you work out what else is going on.

I weaned my DC off milk in the night by diluting the formula. So one week I would do a 6oz but with 5 scoops, the following 6oz with 4 scoops etc until it was just mucky water. DC started to eat more in the day and stop waking for milk altogether.

And just to add, don't let the constipation get out of hand as it'll become psychological and then she'll have long term problems. See GP / speak to ERIC as soon as you can