I would like to put everything down in one place as I'm trying to get my head round J's sleep problems ahead of seeing the GP next week. Please feel free to ignore unless you have a particular interest!
DS1 suffered from three-month colic and was a poor sleeper. DS2 suffered from lactose overload and was a terrible sleeper (didn't reliably sleep through until five or six years old). Both of them now love milk!
J was a poor sleeper from the start. He breastfed frequently and for long periods, was sick up to ten times a day and showed signs of distress such as flatulence and evidence of pain when lying flat. (At 16 months old J has had way more Calpol than DS1 and DS2 put together, i.e. 18 years between them.)
At six months J was diagnosed with silent reflux and started on Gaviscon which immediately sorted the vomiting and ranitidine which never seemed to do that much for him. At seven months J had egg for the first time and immediately reacted, the only time he has had egg since (one egg challenge of a crumb of cake) he screamed for hours about five hours afterwards.
At eight months the penny dropped that J was reacting to the egg in my diet and I cut out egg as well. Due to quite a few screw ups I was able to confirm without a shadow of a doubt that J reacted when I ate egg. Sleep problems and reflux symptoms improved over time after I cut out egg and I was able to stop the Gaviscon and ranitidine. Sleep was never that great apart from a period in January/February when J slept through on around seven nights in total.
Preparatory to stopping breastfeeding I introduced a bottle of cows milk at bedtime. J's sleep went back to 'normal' i.e. a few wake ups a night.
About four weeks ago J had a vomiting bug and was sick on three days over a period of five days. Everyone else in the family had the same thing and was only ill for one to two days. Since then J's nappies have gone from completely liquid to diarrhoea but have not been solid since (they were before he was ill). His sleep went from bad to worse with wakenings 6-15 times a night and inconsolable screaming in the wee hours that required Calpol for him to settle.
In the past week I have switched J from cows milk to toddler formula. His sleep improved over a period of about five days and we have had a couple of sleep throughs again.
I'm thinking CMPI but I have a few questions:
- Is the CMPI secondary to his illness last month and continued diarrhoea and therefore may clear up over time?
- Why is formula better than cows milk when they both contain the same protein?
- J has been eating yoghurt, cheese and butter since six months old with no obvious symptoms although I realise food intolerances are extremely difficult to pinpoint without a food diary. Should I cut all dairy product from his diet?
- Could J be reacting to cows milk protein in my breastmilk? And therefore should I stop breastfeeding? I have no problem doing this I would love to eat eggs again but then what would he have instead of bm?
- Is toddler formula the best milk for him or is there something else I should try such as coconut milk or Neocate?
If anyone has any thoughts then I would really appreciate them. I think J is suffering unnecessarily, I know his mood is a lot better when he isn't awake screaming in the night funny that. But also he's less clingy during the day after a good night which makes me think he's generally not feeling great all the time. Hopefully the GP will refer J to the paediatrician but if there's anything I can do in the meanwhile then it would be good to get a head start.