19-week old waking several times a night - MIL suggesting Medised.....what do you think??

[naturopath]

My 19-week old DS is waking pretty much every hour throughout the night. Not sure why - could be hunger/excema/habit. Soemtimes I feed him, sometimes he will go back to sleep with themobile / DH rocking him. Usually settles back to sleep pretty quickly. DH therefore rules out hunger as main cause of waking.

Anyway, MIL now suggesting I give him Medised to help him sleep.

What do you oh wise MNters think?? (personally I am v anti drugs for no good reason, butmaybe I'm wrong)

...

I tried it when my previously fairly good sleeper suddenly started waking up a lot at 7 months and it didn't make the slightest difference-- she sorted herself out after a couple of weeks.

I found 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child' by Marc Weissbluth pretty helpful-- it's quite hardcore on the sleep-training front, which I didn't do, but has very useful advice on noticing and responding to your baby's own rhythms.

NAturopath, if the eczema is bad enough he may be waking up if he is scratching himself or getting hurt while doing so.

I wouldn't advise for Medised, but when DS's eczema was at its worse, part of the treatment he was given was a syrup to help relieve the itching which had the secondary effect to send him to sleep. Perhaps MEdised is not for him, and I certainly would NOT advise drugging a child to get him to sleep if there was no health reason and doctor recommendatio behind. But it seems he has a condition that may be making him to wake up hence a medicine may be justified, not to get him to sleep but to allow the eczema cycle to be broken. Although, I suspect this would be the case just for severe eczema.

Naturopath, my DS was in a very similar pattern at that age. He has eczema too which was worse at that age. This is also typical growth spurt stage when babies do wake up and feed more in the night. I can promise that it WILL get better.

I would certainly say too early to leave to cry (not that I ever would tbh), also too early to wean imo (more milk will give him far more calories than a bit of pureed veg, which is about all you could give him at this age). Medised isn;t a magic solution either, doesn't stop them waking imo.

Does he wear gloves at night to stop him scratching? Also might be worth trying different eczema creams, we tried loads inc Cetraben and found Doublebase to be the one that worked best, plus 1% hydrocortisone for flare-ups. The paed prescribed us Vallergan (antihistamine with side effect of drowsiness) to use once or twice a week to break the itch/scratch cycle, but I really wasn't keen and we never used it.

Sometimes it's hard to accept that there's no solution to this problem, there's no magic fix, or nothing you're doing wrong that you can change (much as the gurus would have you believe, as it sells their books). You just have to hang in there, get as much rest as you can (would def. recommend co-sleeping), nap during the day, and rest assured that This Too Will Pass

Some good advice here, naturopath!

On the bf side, I've been feeding my one year old solely on my milk. I found that, if he fed frequently, it would really take it out of me. Only lots of water, rest and healthy food will help you to recover.

At around 4 months, your breasts change from storing a large amount of milk to sort of producing it on demand. You've probably noticed a reduction in breast tension and that 'udder' feeling! You might also notice that 'let down' takes longer too. If you're tired and stressed, it'll probably take even longer for your milk to flow.

IF this is a mik issue, rather than due to eczema problems, then perhaps your baby is waking because they've not had a full feed and are merely going from one milk 'snack' to another?

Just try not to get stressed about the whole thing and work through one problem/solution at a time. Eat well, drink lots of water and REST REST REST.

Thanks - this is all really helpful. Saw dermatologist today who precribed various things - mentioned the syrup but I don't think we'll try it yet.
Guess will just have to see how the new creams go (and have also started weaning him on strict instructions of paediatrician, so hopefully the combination might allow him to sleep better).