7 month old sleeps great for first 3-4 hours then its a nightmare

[mjohnson33]

I started a new thread off of another I posted....
My DS will be 7 months on Wednesday and I am utterly exhausted and desperate....Let me set the scene...
Up until 4 weeks ago DS slept with me in my bed, I since have put him in his crib in my room.  He is a pro at putting himself to sleep 95% of the time.  He takes great naps and even goes down at BT most nights perfectly.....he will sleep for 3-4 hours without a peep and then once he wakes the first time, our nights are ruined and I cannot figure out why he is waking.  He becomes very restless and tosses and turns until he wakes himself up and then has a horrible time getting back to sleep even with pat/shush.  I literaly sit by the crib and pat him and he alseep and as soon as I stop he starts moving again....if he does stay asleep he is back up in an hour doing the same thing.  If I let him fuss and cry, it just escalates into hysteria.  I am adamant about not picking him up b/c I think that may do more harm than good.  He is a belly sleeper but keeps rolling onto his back and I think that causes some of the wakings but its not all the time.  I have tried, tylenol and orajel (in case its teething), cereal in the bottle, he gets a bath every night and we are totally consistent with BT routine....Seems the last few nights its gotten worse, he is up for 1-2 hours crying and carrying on.  Even if I bring him in bed with me he is still very restless so I dont think that is the problem.  Then he seems to settle from 3am-5:30 and starts to stir again.  Could this be hunger?? Sometimes if I cave and feed him he does sleep better after the bottle but not always....He is very hard to burp in the middle of the night b/c he usually falls asleep eating and if I dont get a burp he will wake in pain. Saturday night I fed him at 3 am and he decided he wanted to wake up and talk for an hour afterwards.....I still BF but I give him a bottle of formula before bed hoping it will help. Please help me I am so frustrated and tired!!!

Also, on a side note, he has constipation issues.....I give him prune juice twice a day in his bottles (pumped Breastmilk) but he seems to still have issues, could this be part of it??

[mmom]

Can you post your current EAS for us?  I know it was a work in progress.  But what is it now?

[~*Nicole*~]

Sounds like it could be tummy related troubles. Maybe gas or the formula is too "heavy" for him?? If he has constipation issues it could def. be that he is feeling uncomfortable during the night. Might be that it takes until that point for him to digest the BT feed and then he wriggles and squirms trying to get gas out or something? I'd be inclined to stick to BF only at night, even if you have to nurse once overnight while your EASY gets sorted. It will be easiest to digest and help you rule out tummy troubles as the culprit of the wakings.

Have you been introducing other solids besides cereal during the day? I am wondering if he has some type of intolerance or other food related issue?

[mjohnson33]

Well I just took him to the Dr today and he has adenovirus whwich is a sore throat and pink eye!!! So I am pretty sure this is the cause of the past few nights but it doesn't explain the other 30! LOL. I am in the process of weaning nursing so I am going to keep the formula feeds as I have been doing this for 3 months now so that isn't the issue. I do feed him fruits in the am and veggies and starch at night. Doesn't matter what kind he eats either so not sure that is it.

Basically he wakes at 7 and has 3 hr A times and naps for 1.5-2 hrs twice a day and is in bed by 7:30 usually.

[EloysH]

If he is independently sleeping otherwise, I would be inclined ot blame discomfort - food or formula related.  Sounds like he has a sore tummy.     Conspitation  can be quite unsettling and is often a symptom of food intolerance, most commonly dairy.  Is he on a dariy based formula?

My DS2 has multiple food intolerances and we went the best part of his life up with him in the night 2 hours +  but for all sleeps and the first part of the night he would sleep like a log.   After ruling out teething and props it came back down to foods and when we brough his diet back a bit to what we knew he could tolerate he sttn for weeks on end.  Now when he wakes at night I know that i have gone a little too far with his diet - I am gently increasing the quantities of foods he is intolerant to, so I can find his threshold of tolerance.

Food for thought  

[mjohnson33]

Well, he is over the sickness now and he is getting worse!!!  It doesnt matter how little or how much day sleep he gets, nights are so bad!!!  Last night I put him down at 8:20pm and he started waking up at 11:45pm, I tried putting him in bed with me and he was so restless and obviously tired as his eyes were closed...he just couldnt settle....then after an hour of pat/shsh he started crying so I figured he was hungry, so I fed him 5 oz bottle, he ate it all and then I put him to bed, he was really restless again I had to shake the bed to get him to relax....then he slept from 1:15-3am and I let him be when he woke quite a few times and he put himself back to sleep. 
EloysH, Yes, he is on dairy based formula.  Since I am starting to wean nursing, he is now on one full bottle during the day(starting today) and the other at night before BT.  So, you think I should try some soy based formula?? Dont you think it would have an effect on my breastmilk??  I dont really eat alot of dairy.  I have about one serving a day...just thinking out loud.  I am willing to try anything here, I am desperate.  I also give him a formula feed in the middle of the night between 1-3am.  How long after he eats does it start to bother them??

[mjohnson33]

The best night I had was last week when he was sick, he only woke one time and it was to eat.  He had 5h nap time that day and total A time was 9 hours.  Do you think he is getting too little sleep during the day?? I am capping his naps at 2H each...and he has 9H A time.

[mmom]

Eloys has a great deal of experience as she did an extreme elimination diet for her LO and had great success with it.  Having gone through something similar and opting for a HAF (Hypoallergenic formula), I would at least suggest you try one, rather than a soy formula.  Yes, you will have milk proteins in your bm and if you wish to tackle that as well, Eloys has great knowledge on it.

[mjohnson33]

mmom, you think I should try one that doesnt have soy protein either??

[EloysH]

Soy proteins are too similar to dairy and half dairy intolerant kids have troubles with soy.  If you want to test out for milk/soy protein intolerance, do a 2 week trial of a non dariy formula or at least a hypoallergenic formula as Kara suggested (one where the whey protein is hydrolyzed and broken down).   It would take two weeks for the proteins to clear his system.  You would aldo need to exclude all dariy and soy from his diet.  If his sleep and constipation improves significantly, you can look at a long term plan for dairy/soy free.

I can send you some links to read up about it this afternoon,  gotta run for now.

xx

[mjohnson33]

Eloysh, I bought soy formula and he hates it!! Does the other stuff taste any better?? He won't even take a bottle thats 2oz of soy and 4 regular!!!

[mmom]

I would go right to the HAF and skip the soy all together.  It might take a few days of half HAF and half regular to get him to drink it.

[EloysH]

I don't think the HAF tastes any better, but really it is not worth going to soy. The stats show that he is likely to be intolerant to soy, it might be a waste of your time.

[mjohnson33]

My sister seems to think its just an upset tummy from the formula.  So for now, I am going to give him breast milk at BT instead of formula for a few days and see if that helps....I am going to take back the soy formula tomorrow and wait and see what happens.  But last night was alot better.  Here was his day:
Wake 6:40
E 7:15
solids 8:15
A 3 hours
S 9:40-11:55

E 12
Solids 1:15
A 3 Hours
S 2:55-4:20

E wouldnt take a bottle!!! so I fed him solids at 5:30 then he took milk out of a sippy cup but only about 3oz!! (why did he do this???)
A 3 hours
bath and bottle at 7pm BT at 7:20, went right to sleep.

Is it normal to top him off before BT?? Usually his 3rd feeding of the day is around 4:30/5 then I feed him solids an hour later....then I give him a 4 oz formula bottle.  Is that too much??

Woke at 8:45 crying, but he just needed a binky and pat
Then woke at 11:45 fussing so I tried to resettle and he wouldnt just kept getting worked up so I fed him at 12:15am 4 oz. Then he slept until 4 when he needed a binky and pat then slept until 7:30am.  I also heard him grunting at 6:30am(he was pooping).....

I think I am going to let his first nap be his long nap and then he can have a shorter 2nd nap....

[mjohnson33]

So, I finally broke down and called the doctor b/c I believe that this is not a sleep need/issue....he clearly is waking from a belly ache....we have been struggling with contipation since he was 4 months old and since then I have been giving him prune juice in 2 of his bottles each day and most recently I have added miralax in the mix b/c he still isnt having regular bowel movements.  The last bottle of the evening almost always has prune juice in it and its also a top off bottle when he has really just eaten a bottle about 1-2 hours before that as well as solids. So she thinks he is too full and the prune juice is messing with him.  So she suggested I stop the top off bottle as well as the prune juice.  Last night I did stop both and he STTN!!!
He did wake 2-3 times before I went to bed for a binky replug, is this caused by OT?? Here was his schedule yesterday:
wake 7
E 7:20
A 3 hours
S 10-12

E 12:15
A 3 hours
S 3-4:40

Solids at 5:15 then 7 oz bottle at 6pm.  We then did bath at 7 and he was in bed and asleep by 7:45.  He slept pretty good until 1.5 hours after I put him down, he had rolled over and his arm was stuck in the slats of the crib.  Then 50 minutes later he rolled over again from his belly and woke himself up. 
He did however wake at 6am this morning.  Is there anything I can do to not let this become a habit??  Seems like if he doesnt wake to eat at night he has EWs....
I am so excited, and I hope this is the start to a good sleep pattern.