I have been a lurker on the bump since I was pregnant with my now 3.5 month old baby boy. I always liked to read all the great comments and tips people have but now I am pretty sure we are dealing with food intolerances and I would like to see if anyone has any advice. My baby was always a cryer, since 2 days old in the hospital and I was completly determined to EBF since I work from home. By the time he was 6 weeks old I was at the ped because of the non stop crying. She said he probably had colic and it might be something in my diet causing it so she put me on a radical elimination diet to help find the cause. At that time my son was having issues breastfeeding where he latched on and off all the time and it got so bad I had to see an LC who said her feeling was that I wasn't producing enough milk (he had been gaining the minimum normal weight but was falling off his curve). I called the doc for a rec on a formula and they said alimentum because I was still on the elimination diet. I bought the powder and after the 1st bottle he was like a different baby and even smilled for the 1st time, no more crying, good naps during the day (but still frequent waking at night). I got off the elimination diet because I thought I had low milk supply and all my problems were solved with a little formula supplementation (I remained dairy free just to be on the safe side). That lasted 3 weeks, crying came back, he started having reflux symptoms and went 8 days without sleeping. The ped gave him zantac, within 10 days all was well again (still poor night sleeping) so I tried to introduce dairy back into my diet because I thought what was bothering him all along was reflux and not MPI. After 4 days of eating a little dairy he started not sleeping again during the day or night so I am pretty sure he has MPI even though sleeping was the only symptom he had. So then I started wondering if the dairy wasn't letting him sleep well maybe there's something else that's bothering him too and that's why he is such a poor night sleeper. I put him on alimentum exclusively for 7 days and his day sleeping got better- I was using ALI RTF for all feedings except his last middle of the night feeding I was using powder- so then one day I gave him an extra 2 bottles of the powder and he didn't sleep all day and had a pretty bad night. I am thinking maybe he has a corn intolerance or the powder makes him gassy or something else. I am currently leaving him on ALI RTF for 7 days and already saw improvement in his sleeping with less night waking and longer stretches. Does anyone feel like food intolerance is related to poor sleeping? Or reflux? Sorry for the long post, just wanted to vent a little and give some info to you all.
TIA
Re: Intro and already a long history.
I have seen posts on these boards where the baby tolerates RTF formula better than the powdered version. I'm not sure why that is, but that sounds like the case for your LO.
I definitely think food intolerances can cause sleep problems. Before I got my diet figured out, DD2 would've been labeled colicky and she slept terribly. She would always be up at 4 am exactly, grunting like crazy. And she'd scream bloody murder starting at 8 pm every night. If something is irritating LO's stomach/intestines, that will make it hard to get comfortable and go to sleep. DD2 also has terrible reflux and that makes for sleep issues too. Reflux is usually worse when laying down, so that makes sense. (She's on Prevacid now and that's finally doing the trick).
Something like 40% of babies who are milk intolerant are also soy intolerant, so if you're still bf'ing, I'd cut soy out too. It took about 5 wks of me being dairy and soy free for DD2's poop to go back to normal. She's a very happy baby now - completely different from those early weeks when she was so miserable.
If the Zantac doesn't seem to be working, ask to try something else. We tried Zantac, then Prilosec, before landing on Prevacid.
DD1: allergic to eggs & dairy
c/p 4/1/11
DD2: milk and soy protein intolerant, allergic to eggs, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, bananas
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