Downhill in 2 weeks time

Hi there,

I also have a night-time waker with severe reflux. It sounds to me like the dairy could be a major culprit. Has he always responded to tylenol or motrin for teething in the past, by feeling better or being able to sleep? Teething can be a huge issue, but if it’s always been controllable in the past….then this looks suspect.

The thing with reflux is that kids ARE able to be distracted from their pain, especially during the day while they are upright. This happened with us where our son was largely fine during the day and miserable at night and for naps, and his ph probe found that he was refluxing day and night at ten minute intervals. So he was refluxing all day long, but he was distracted and upright (except for at naptime!) and the ped gi and ped said this is normal and to be expected that some kids are distracted by playing, etc. during the day– even though his testing showed he was clearly refluxing while he seemed to be happily playing.

Milk proteins can also build up in their systems, so at first with a trial they might seem fine and several weeks or even several months into eating dairy again, their symptoms from dairy intolerance can resurface and I’ve read a lot about this happening with kids on these forums. We haven’t reintroduced dairy, so I don’t have first-hand experience with that issue. How long have you been back on dairy?

Also, I would think that if you suspect dairy, it would be best to not give him dairy directly, and you could also cut it from your diet if you are bfeeding. Giving him dairy directly seems like it would be worse than getting it through your milk, if dairy is a problem. Night time wakings are a huge sign of MSPI, which you probably already know from being on these forums so much!!

I would investigate the tooth thing a bit more, is this how he acted other times teething? We do a cocktail of Children’s motrin cold (with decongestant) and children’s benadryl and hyland’s teething tablets for the horrible teething episodes (the ped has cleared me to use all these meds at the same time). This seems to help, but Lucas still wakes pretty frequently even with this drug medley. You could also try something like that to see if he responds. Have you felt a tooth anywhere or does it look like teething? Another thing to think about with the “is it teething?” question, is that if it’s been two weeks and waking every hour and no tooth in sight….then this would be hard core teething and no teeth to show for it…? On the flip side, Lucas’ reflux is always ten times worse with teething, we are in the middle of a session right now nad he’s been waking every hour for three nights. But his longest stint of the miserable teething is really more like ten days. He’ll wake every hour (or more) for several nights and be crabby for about a week or ten days at the most.

I have been severely sleep deprived for much of the last 18 months, so I know how it feels …. and if I were in your shoes, I think first I would cut dairy immediately from both his and my own diet. It sounds like for you things were really stable and something has changed to make things bad again….and I would look at the dairy for that change. Has he always had soy or have you reintroduced soy as well?

These are just some ideas– obviously you know him best! I hope it gets better soon and you can both get some sleep!