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Weaning

Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

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Original poster

6 month old waking through the night - seems in pain?

10 replies

AddictedtoGreys · 28/11/2013 09:34

I was wondering if anyone has had this happened, or If it is normal? first DC so a bit clueless!

my 6 month old DS started weaning a week and half ago, just bits of toast, porridge, yoghurt, banana. he has the last 4/5 nights woken through the night with his eyes still closed, but shouting/crying seemingly in pain. after a cuddle and a bit of rocking he settles back down to sleep but wakes again between 45 mins to 2 hours later. he is also still having a bf once or twice through the night.

he doesn't so any of this through the day. doesn't seem to be teething, and is quite out of the ordinary for him.

is this normal?

OP posts:

CityDweller · 28/11/2013 09:57

I read that they can start having nightmares at this age - could that be it?

Original poster

AddictedtoGreys · 28/11/2013 18:44

I don't know? I would have thought Thomas the tank engine could be scary but yes I suppose its a possibility

OP posts:

Original poster

AddictedtoGreys · 28/11/2013 18:45

*wouldn't have thought

OP posts:

Willothewhip · 02/12/2013 11:59

Our daughter had exactly the same problem. We had three months of miserable uncomfortable nights until she was finally diagnosed with an allergy to cow's milk. She had reacted to the proteins in my breast milk in the six months of exclusive breast feeding prior to weaning and this had caused 'gut injury' so everything gave her wind and discomfort. In the end we took her off solids altogether whilst I went dairy free. This gave her gut time to heal and we are now back on all solids except dairy at 10 months. I really hope this isn't your problem but thought I'd share in case it helps!

Original poster

AddictedtoGreys · 02/12/2013 15:08

hi willo, thank you for the message! how did you go about getting her diagnosed? I have also bf previous to weaning and never had a problem and I wasn't dairy free. would he have had a reaction to my breast milk previously if he did have a dairy allergy?

OP posts:

Willothewhip · 02/12/2013 19:57

Hi again, yes, we didn't have a problem for the first six months either and I was also eating dairy at the time. Apparently breast milk is a fantastic healing agent for the gut, so whilst the milk proteins were causing injury, the milk was keeping things relatively manageable (she did always sick up quite a bit of milk after a feed which may have been linked). It was only when we started solids that the pain started. Absolutely everything we gave her was a problem. It went on for weeks and got progressively worse. Interestingly, she was able to keep milk products down at first too but then we had a couple of incidents at 8 months where she'd clearly reacted to the food ahead of nighttime (vomiting).

As for diagnosis, it was very hard to get our GP to take us seriously. We were fobbed off a number of times to teach her to 'self settle' ! We saw a paediatric dietician who was useless and didn't recognise the symptoms and then I insisted on seeing a paediatric gastroenterologist who was great. I can let you have all the details if you need to go down this route. What I will say is that if you feel there is an issue, press hard to see someone who knows what they're talking about. It was a very distressing time for us and our baby lost weight whilst we were waiting for NHS wheels to turn.

Another quick thought is that it wouldn't hurt for you both to go dairy free to see whether this has an impact. It takes up to two weeks to get out of your system and a further two to get out of the baby's but within days we saw an improvement. If you do try it, make sure you're taking a calcium supplement (Pregnacare was suggested to me) and eating a calcium rich diet too. The dietician was at least good on this!

Don't hesitant to contact me directly if you think I can help.

Willothewhip · 02/12/2013 20:04

Oh, and just to say that milk allergy is incredibly common now - about 7% of babies. There's no history of allergies in either my or DH's families. Almost all babies grow out of it, though, and most of them do so by the time they're two.

cupcake78 · 07/12/2013 03:09

Agree it could be food allergy. Best way to work out what it is is to cut out a food group all together. Difficult with milk! Speak to your gp about it.

Could be milk or gluten based on that food.

Jiltedjohnsjulie · 08/12/2013 19:52

If you think it could be an intolerance this article is very good and this on allergy uk is good too.

It could just be that your Lo isn't ready for solids yet. I'd stop and try again in a week or two.

tinkertaylor1 · 08/12/2013 19:59

Yes! our dd2 went through this.

The waking after 45 mins is her natural sleep cycle is ending and she is not putting herself back to sleep.

On some days dd (8m) will only do 45 mins before she starts crying, I tuck her back in and she goes off for another 45-60 mins, then wakes smiling.

Sometimes she woke in the night like she was having a nightmare, with a very strange cry and really wouldn't come round for about 10mins they seem to have passed though!

as you mentioned that it only happened at night I wouldn't think it was an intolerance to something.

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