Baby 14 months - great in days, miserable all night

[BrittaBroad]

I am baffled. Our son is 14 months old. Good growth/weight, hitting milestones, babbling and generally great and cheery in the day. At night he is miserable. He has always slept terribly. Had a tongue tie (managed to bf through it, got it clipped at 11 months which helped a bit with mega-drooling and solids). He also had silent relfux, and it may be it is still just that. But it is odd to me that since he started sitting up/eating solids /when he went from vomming lots too, to 'silent' relflux behaviour so pain lying down etc. his sleep has stubbornly stayed pretty much the same. Maybe a 2-3 hr chunk at start of the night, followed by hourly (or more) waking, wanting to be latched on all night, endless shifting and shuffling and crying and arching. This has persisted through gradual shifts from 4 - 1 nap, and through patches of awful/fighting naps (3-5 months old) and not improved by getting naps sorted. He now has fairly painlessly shifted from 2 to 1 nap, and is sleeping for 1.5-2.5 hours in the middle of the day in his buggy. We have tried several reflux meds and only seen minor improvements and big side effects so off those now. Cutting out dairy and soya (nearly 2 weeks in, no sign of changes). No pattern with what he east as far as we can tell and no signs of allergy... Any ideas? I just don't get how a baby who is so fine in the day can be so not fine all night... Even if this is still reflux, shouldn't it be waning a bit by now? Are there more obscure things we should ask about? Hiatus hernia? other digestive problems? I am at a loss and very, very worn out. Hope someone has some idea of what to try or has been through something similar! It's very lonely having a baby who sleeps worse than most newborns when everyone else is getting back to some kind of normal life!

If it is a behavioural, or emotional, rather than physical thing now - which it may well be, I may be able to help.

I'm running a Free Toddler Sleep Challenge starting this Wednesday. The plan is a week of sleep logging, followed by a selection of approaches, implementation, and support from me and other mums all the way through.

You can find out more and sign up here: www.practicalresearchparenting.com/toddler-sleep-challenge/

I'm a registered psychologist, and I've been researching child sleep for 3 years - I have many options, just haven't committed to any yet.

Dr Nicole Weeks

austengirl, rant warning! The diagnosis and treatment was late as I couldn't get any healthcare professionals in Norway (where we live most of the time) to take it seriously. Tongue tie knowledge there is, from my experience, dire. My son's tie was not hard to see, but short of a visible tie right to the tip of the tongue, and a baby with poor weight gain, there is no chance of getting treatment. So we knew we had most of the symptoms and his tongue didn't seem to move. And we knew that 2 bf volunteers thought it was suspicious. But he was gaining weight, so esentially, they didn't care about his or my pain. Finally saw a UK tt specialist at 6 months who said 'yep, clear tie', but at that point he was gaining weight, and I was yet to realise it could be linked to his reflux type symptoms, so we decided to wait and see. Only got it treated after getting a diagnosis of reflux at 9 months. With that I had been saying at all his health-checks/drop ins that I was worried how much he vomited, and that he was miserable on his belly and puked when put on it, and that he was awake every night nearly hourly screaming, and that surely a sleep regression shouldn't last that long.... Basically was either told 'you're a first time mum - babies do vom a bit and wake up' or 'you are being too soft and need to leave him to cry and stop picking him up so much at night'. Family mostly acted like we were exagerating or thought we'd 'made a rod for own backs' by carrying him in the sling so much! So, anyway, eventually my GP agreed that it was a bit odd that he remained unable to lie down and sleep for more than an hour at 9 months, and we saw a specialist (gastro pediatrician) who, on hearing our description, said it sounded like reflux, did a 24hr ph test to confirm it, and prescribed meds. Sadly, the meds (tried 2 types) gave him bad side-effects while not doing a huge amount to reflux. Got his tt cut as soon as we could on traveling to the UK (when he was 11 months). So that's how we are where we are... I think it very possible that the combination of him struggling to feed with a tie (meaning his feeds were frequent and long) combined with a lot of discomfort lying down, mean he never got much chance to consolidate sleep gradually, or fall asleep without a lot of input from us. So we have a mixture of ingrained behavior and ongoing health probs at this point. Having said that, I am pretty sure it is not just habit. My parents were up this weekend and looked fairly horrified in the morning after their first night. They kept saying how he is 'clearly still crying in pain' and they can't believe it's the same baby as the cheery toddler they see in the day. He doesn't just wake, want comfort, and go back to sleep. He often clearly wants to sleep, and either can't, or keeps being woken after a very short, light doze, by some kind of belly-pain. It sucks. If we ever make a breakthrough I'll post in-case someone in the same boat reads this in the future! At this point, I don't really think his issue is 'classic' reflux caused by immature valves or excess acid (or it would have responded more to time and meds). So I am trying excluding various foods to see if intolerances play a role. Will see specialist at end of March, so if no improvement by then, they may have other suggestions.

Hi @BrittaBroad I know this is very old but I wonder how things worked out for you? I'm having a similar problem with my son and honestly really struggling as nothing I try seems to work and he really screams. Thank you.

Hi @BrittaBroad I appreciate this post is quite a few years old! I was just wondering if you'd be able to share how your little one got on with their sleep in the end? I could have literally written your post word for word (aside we has TT at 5 months). Finding the nights so tough atm as my little girl just seems in pain (she's 14 months) but she's the happiest kid during the day! Thanks in advance