Struggling with LOs sleep - allergies, reflux, wind…don’t even know what anymore.

[MyOpenEagle]

My LO is 5 months old and her sleep has never been great but since the 3.5/4 month mark it’s been so much worse. On a bad night it’s up every 1 hour or more, on a good night she may go down for 3 hours then be up every hour. She wakes up with a lot of wind and often screams. She only soothes with BF before the next bout of tummy discomfort. I’m exhausted!!

We suspected reflux early on as she has never wanted to lie on her back from day 1. Gaviscon and omeprazole made her constipated and added to our tummy issues so we stopped them. Her reflux is generally more manageable now but we don’t seem to have a handle of the wind at night or tummy upset. We have tried all the upright, burping advice they provide. She is also on a probiotic.

I cut out dairy months ago, she slept better for like 2 nights then was awful again. I have now cut out dairy, soy and eggs. Still awful at night but seems to spit up less in the day. I have no caffeine anymore, I avoid acidic food.

TT released at 4 months. Doing oral work to support it. She had cranial osteopathy (tbf not had any recently).

At our wits end with it. I feel like I’m afraid of eating anything anymore!l as it’s constantly a bad night! She won’t take a bottle either for us to offer her hypoallergenic milk…

Anyone had similar experiences? What helped your LO?

Yes over here. It was definitely the TT here and it did get better but slowly.

My top tips woukd be to get as many feeds in FFing the day as possible. Start no later than 7 am and offer at the maximum every 3 hours, preferably every 2 to 2.5.

Try some breast compressions.

Are you winding him? A lot of BF babies don't need winding but you could try The Tiger in the Tree Hold.

How about some tummy massage as part of the nighttime routine?

Have you tried co-sleeping too?

My daughter is 4 and still has reflux and whenever she sleeps like this it is always her silent reflux causing it. We only got on top of it with gaviscon high dose omperazole, lactulose for the constipation and later domperidone too. She is still on the reflux meds but no longer needs the lactulose.
She as 20 food allergies so I would keep a detailed food and symptom diary in case there are other allergies at play. Remembering that anything can be an allergen. My daughter is allergic to more vegetables than top 14 allergens!

My son was like this. Didn't manage to sleep 2 hours consecutively until he was 2. He is 3 now and can sleep 6 hours consecutively. It's not enough but I've accepted i'm going to be chronically sleep deprived for the long haul.

We are co sleeping as we have at least 4 wake ups every night!

I tried tummy massage every day on her nappy mat and then before bed, doesn’t make a difference whether I do or not she wakes up the same 😓its really hard to get farts out of her as well! We burp at least twice every feed and she self burps now too.

what does FFing mean? I try and offer milk every couple hours. The TT has been awhile ago now to be honest, it helped with her settling for sleep easier but the wakes are still really bad…how slow were your changes?

That’s the difficult part, I feel she also has multiple sensitives/ allergies and I just can’t get on top of them with BFing unless I literally restrict everything and start from scratch as we’ve never reached a stable baseline with her😞

Did you find trapped wind would occur at night when reflux was worse?

Glad you’ve been able to manage it with gaviscon and omeprazole. How long was it before you noticed a change? Her tummy discomfort often trumps us ever noticing any changes with the reflux!

I don't know where the FFing came from. It means Formula Feeding but I just meant get as many feeds in during the day as you can

I think this will be me too 😓 did you ever figure out what was causing it?

Initially it was allergies (egg soy dairy), later just poor learned sleep habits from waking constantly for so long and searching for comfort from boobs. We tried a gentle sleep trainer (once all his medical stuff settled) who was honest with us that some children just have low sleep needs.
Me and my husband take turns every night still co sleeping we bought a low bed Bed Frame https://amzn.eu/d/08XzppJV
for our son's room and share with him. He's never once ever slept in a cot because he won't sleep even a minute in one. Not ideal but how we survive

Food diaries are your friend. That was how I identified all of my daughter's allergies. I kept a diary of everything and quite quickly found she had feeding aversions and was hard to keep occupied and just wanted to be paced around within a few hours of me eating something she didn't like. Prior to this it was a few days before the loose poos and screaming started. It made it a lot easier to work through the options. I tried to keep my diet the same for 3 or 4 days and then swap ingredients in and out based on hunches. It was only after removing dairy, soya, eggs, coconut and tomatoes that she had enough improves to have good and bad days rather than bad and worse days which made these patterns clearer. We made loads of progress between 4 and 8 months and identified about 8 -10 of the main allergens but she was 14 months before she symptoms free.

We started on omperazole at 8 weeks but our GP kept us on a low dose so she would have some improvements for a week after a dose increased but then symptoms returned. At 17 weeks we saw a paediatrician for something else and he put her on the maximum 3mg/kg dose and we saw huge improvements with in a week. She was on 6-12 gaviscon sachets too and I went dairy and soya free at the same time. She had a 4 month assessment at 17 weeks a few days before the paeds appointment and she scored very poorly on it and wasn't smiling or turning to sounds or voices. Within a week of the high dose omperazole and dairy and soya free diet she was smiling and engaging with the world. By 21 weeks when the HV came back to do the 5 month assessment she was perfectly average. The thought is she was just in too much discomfort to engage with the world. Ultimately for us omperazole and gaviscon weren't quite sufficient and at 7 months we saw a private paediatrician who added domperidone too. She is still on omperazole, gaviscon and domperidone at aged 4 as she doesn't seem to be outgrowing her reflux although this is very much the minority.

She did get trapped wind. It was particularly bad when she had eaten wheat so we had her on a low wheat diet for a while. We also used probiotics drops for a while which helped. We have a colic relief massage which was helpful for trapped wind. We did it three times a day and three repeats each time. Water wheel A to count of 6. Crunch legs to tummy for a count of 6. Sun and moon count of 6. Crunch legs to tummy count of 6. Cuddles then repeat.