Author Topic: Excessive Saliva/Spit-Up ??  (Read 1595 times)

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Offline gracecody

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Excessive Saliva/Spit-Up ??
« on: December 05, 2005, 17:36:27 pm »
I am really not sure if this is an eating issue or a sleeping issue or both, but it is affecting both very negatively.  I'm wondering if this is simply a phase or a sign of a problem that should be addressed.

I have a 10 wk old baby boy who is exclusively breast fed.  Over the past three weeks he has quite suddenly moved from eating every 2 hours (during the day) to every 3+ hours.  I follow his hunger cues so this is not a schedule I am imposing upon him.  I just started with a loose EASY at about 8.5 weeks, after borrowing the most recent BW book from a friend.  I guess my baby would be best described as 'spirited,' at least where sleep is concerned.  He is generally tough to get to sleep but I will say that he has gotten a lot easier since about 9.5 weeks.

Anyway, I wanted to give a little background on his sleep issues to put the spit-up issue in context.  We follow a loose 3-hour EASY all day and he takes his nap in the evening, 6-ish.  Then when he wakes we feed and start the bedtime routine, which is a bath, change to jammies, swaddle and shhh-pat to sleep.  It all goes fine (for the most part, he doesn't like to wind down usually) and then anywhere from 30 min to one hour after we put him down to sleep, he will spit up and usually cough, and wake himself up.  This has happened every night for at least the past week.  It doesn't seem to bother him (no pain and usually a tiny amount of spit-up produced) so I don't really think it's reflux.  His bed is at an incline, we place him on his side supported by a rolled up blanket, and I have tried the infamous gas drops and none of these things has helped. 

The last feed previous to going to sleep is usually 45 min to an hour prior, and I am always sure to burp him well afterward.  The other thing that is very frustrating is that when we are doing the shhh-pat he is in a vertical position and when he is starting to relax, he will suddenly start making this gulping sound in his throat.  This is saliva and not spit-up.  It obviously interrupts the process and sometimes after doing this he will start fidgeting and then wake up enough to start resisting the sleep process and suddenly we have a screaming baby.  For the past several nights the routine has been like this:

feed
bedtime routine
sleep
wake up spitting up
shhh-pat
wake up spitting up
shhh-pat, wide awake screaming baby
long wind down
shhh-pat
sleep

And by then it's pretty close to feeding time again, yes, sometimes it has been a 3+ hour deal.  Not fun!!

The final thing, which has us completely baffled, is when he wakes up during the night to feed (usually once or twice) he feeds beautifully for about 30-35 min and goes right back to sleep, and has NEVER once spit-up and woke himself up.  He does spit up on occasion but he manages to sleep through it then (probably because he is in a deeper state of sleep). 

My husband and I have given this all our best efforts and haven't been able to crack this nut -- suggestions, please??!  :)

Offline GraceKellysmom

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Excessive Saliva/Spit-Up ??
« Reply #1 on: December 06, 2005, 02:37:20 am »
You have me stumped, although I had a baby that did this. He did it all day long though - and went on reflux meds which helped his situation.

I'm going to think, and get back to you.
Stacy, Mama to
Grace Kelly 01/03, Maximilian Alexander 07/04, Faith Noelle 03/07, Henry Patrick 12/08
and my angel babies

Offline gracecody

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Excessive Saliva/Spit-Up ??
« Reply #2 on: December 06, 2005, 18:55:05 pm »
Yes, it's a mystery for sure.  He has (thank God) been napping, feeding and playing beautifully for the past several days -- all day long we have this great relaxed EASY routine going and then at bedtime it just all unravels.  Every night we fine tune our 'strategy' based on what happened the night before and we always have to endure 2-3 hours of torture before we all collapse in bed.  :(

One thing that might be contibuting (why I thought it might be a feeding issue) is that he tends to want to cluster feed in the evenings.  Could this be contributing to the problem?  It's the only thing I can think of that's different about the evening/bedtime.

I have him on what I call a 'loose EASY' which means I follow his hunger cues since he has very recently gone from 2/2.5 to 3+ hour intervals and he's not consistent yet.  I think this is fairly normal for his age.  He tends to feed every 3+ hours in the early part of the day and then around late afternoon they start creeping closer together.  So here's a typical feed schedule:

5:45am
9:00am
12:00pm
3:00pm
5:45pm
7:45/8:00pm (last one before bedtime)
2:30am

does that shed any more light?

Offline GraceKellysmom

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Excessive Saliva/Spit-Up ??
« Reply #3 on: December 06, 2005, 20:45:12 pm »
His schedule sounds great, and you are smart to let your breasts adjust to the change in schedule so your supply stays up.

This may be related to overtiredness? You say he is napping well though. Sometimes I found that my ds needed a little catnap (20 min) in the evening and would sleep so much better because he was well rested. I think the bedtime blues is something they definately outgrow - you've just hit a bump in the road.
Stacy, Mama to
Grace Kelly 01/03, Maximilian Alexander 07/04, Faith Noelle 03/07, Henry Patrick 12/08
and my angel babies

Offline gracecody

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Excessive Saliva/Spit-Up ??
« Reply #4 on: December 07, 2005, 03:02:19 am »
I think there is definitely something to what you say -- we have struggled with our evening/bedtime schedule.  Since this has been happening (and he ultimately goes to sleep around midnight sometimes) we are NOT ready to get up at 7am, so we get up whenever he's ready and sometimes that's 9 or 10am.  So our actual timetable changes a bit every day.  For instance, today he didn't finish his 3rd nap until 5:45pm and then I managed to get a cat nap out of him from about 7:15 til 7:45.  So now we're looking at about 9pm for a target bedtime (when he FIRST goes to sleep) and although I am trying to think positively, it very well may be midnight before he's ultimately asleep.  :(

His naps, like everything else, vary, but for the past few days he's generally had two 1.5 hour naps and one 45 min to one hour nap.  Then the cat nap too.

Offline GraceKellysmom

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Excessive Saliva/Spit-Up ??
« Reply #5 on: December 07, 2005, 19:40:49 pm »
Those sound like great naps for his age. Keep working on a short bedtime routine (ie bath, jammies, breast, bed) so he starts to understand "hey I'm taking a bath which means bedtime is soon." You will thank yourself for consistency later - trust me.

The until-midnight screaming fits do stop. Sometimes with mine, I used to stand by the oven and turn the exhaust hood fan on high. The loud white noise really helped to calm him down and get him to sleep. Once he found his thumb, he was much better at soothing himself. He still has a fan to help him sleep.
Stacy, Mama to
Grace Kelly 01/03, Maximilian Alexander 07/04, Faith Noelle 03/07, Henry Patrick 12/08
and my angel babies

Offline gracecody

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Excessive Saliva/Spit-Up ??
« Reply #6 on: December 08, 2005, 01:14:47 am »
That's interesting about the oven fan.  We have a little space heater in our bedroom that has a fan setting and we've been using that for a few weeks now.  It helps him sleep and also allows us to be a tad noisier when getting in and out of bed, opening/closing doors, etc.

Tonight we're going to try giving him a bottle of EBM before bed instead of nursing.  I still don't know if it's better to do the bottle before the bath or after.  I want to give him as much upright time as possible before going to sleep so I'm leaning toward before the bath. 

I am wondering when we might get back to a more normal bedtime?  This 1am stuff is killing us all.  My poor husband feels obligated to stay up and help out as it's really difficult to be patient throughout the process, and then he has to work the next day.  I know it will pass eventually, it's just hard when we're in the middle of it and every thing we try to change the situation seems to backfire.  :(  I am trying the Dr. Brown's bottle tonight and hope that might help this saliva/spit-up/reflux? issue, if that indeed is the root of the problem.