Weaning from prevacid – what to look for?

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone –

Owen’s been doing pretty well lately – knock on wood – so last Saturday we decided to try to wean him from his Prevacid. It was a kind of random decision – I forgot to give it to him in the morning so my husband said, let’s just not give him his AM dose any more, so we haven’t.

We’re now on day 10 of no am dose and so far, I think, so good. He’s only getting his evening dose of 7.5 mg so at this point I doubt it’s even really doing anything for him. I’m just not sure what I should be looking for at this point – when he was little we knew he needed the medicine because he’d refuse bottles. He only gets one bottle and he’s still taking that no problem, and meal wise I think he’s doing ok. Some times he won’t eat much but that seems to be more a toddler thing than a medicine thing.

He is waking up earlier, but again, not all night, just earlier. So instead of sleeping until 6:30/7 he’s been getting up around 5:30. He seems happy when he wakes up though.

So – now that I’m typing this it seems like he’s doing fine, but how do I know if this is what’s bothering him? Is there anything else I should be looking for?

Thanks for your help – even though this seems like a bit of a silly post. It’s been so long that he’s been on the medicine that I’m just a bit freaked out about taking him off.

Thanks!
Laura

[Anonymous]

I wish I had some advice but since we never faced this issue I can’t
really say. But good luck with the continued weaning – sounds like
Owen’s doing really well!

BTW – I do think many babies are just early wakers or at least go
through stages of doing so – particularly active babies like Owen and
my Marisa. But perhaps he’s getting too much day sleep? That can cause
early wakings – how much is he napping?

[Anonymous]

Thanks Karen –

I think you’re probably right about the stages – it certainly isn’t anything new to have Owen up early in the am. We’ve had a few days where he sleeps until 7am or later, but more often than not it’s some time around 5:30/6am. He doesn’t sleep that much in the day – yesterday he had a 2 hour nap from 10am – noon, and then we put him to bed at 7pm and he got up at 5:30. So I guess that’s not too bad. This weekend he only had an hour nap on Saturday (we were away) and still he got up at 5am on Sunday. Ugh – that was not fun.

Thanks for your help anyway! I just don’t exactly know what will tell us if he’s in pain – he’s in such a different place now than he was when we first put him on the medication – being on table foods, cups, just the one bottle a day – so it’s not like we can look for the types of things that he did when he first went on it since it was 15 months ago now. I’m hopeful that he’s doing well since we haven’t noticed much change, but it’s so hard to know!

[Anonymous]

Yea – everyone I know analyzes it and tells me that Marisa would sleep
later if she napped less during day. But i’ve tried it and she still
often wakes at 5:30/6. I consider anything after 6 a lie-in! I think
some babies just are like that – she’s so active that she wants to get
up and play but then tires herself out and needs to nap.

I’m sure it must be rough – maybe he’ll start waking during night if the weaning is a problem?

[Anonymous]

Laura,

That’s fabulous news overall!!! Gives me a bit of hope that maybe one day we’ll actually be able to wean. Do you mind if I ask you a question: When did you first notice that Owen’s reflux seemed to be under control? I’m just wondering if I’m deluding myself here at thinking that Hailey will ever outgrow this- she’s a year and her reflux is still awful.

Regarding the sleep, Sarah (my older one) was always a terrific sleeper but an early riser, 5am like Owen. Nothing I did could change that. If we put her to bed earlier, later, shorter naps, longer naps it was always 5am or 5:30 if we were really lucky. Now that she’s older, she sleeps until 6:45 or 7. So it did change, but it took a long time. As long as he’s waking up content, then I’d say that it’s just him (or a new stage) and not pain. I think if he was uncomfortable then he’d be letting you know about it.

Congrats again with the weaning.

[Anonymous]

Myles is an early riser, too. Sigh. Mommy’s not a morning person! He would like to get up between 5 and 5:30 am every day. I usually don’t go to him unless he’s crying and he will make noises and play with his feet for a little while, and he almost always goes back to sleep until about 7. So, I get to stay in bed even though he’s awake part of the time. Some of the sleep books say that if you don’t go to them in the early morning they will eventually learn to sleep later. It may be true. Myles used to get up at 4:30 (YIKES!) every morning. He hasn’t done that in a long time so I do think that he is gradually adapting to the rest of the family’s schedule.

I’m glad Owen is feeling better and I hope the weaning off of meds goes without a hitch.

[Anonymous]

Thank everyone –

Lori, I spent some time last night going through old posts of mine to figure out when we thought that the reflux was under control. I think it was before his first birthday but not by much – he was doing well in December but had JUST started to eat really well and take his bottles well, etc. I know that when I went to his GI doctor in December he had not gained a lot of weight and they were concerned about that and how much he was eating and made us increase the calories in his bottles, etc., so at that point he still wasn’t going great. But when we went in February she thought we could start to wean him but I wasn’t comfortable with that at all. That was when we first tried to introduce dairy and that was a HUGE failure (major fussiness, diarreah, etc.) and then also tried soy milk which was also a huge failure. We held off until about a month ago but since then he’s been on soy milk with no issues. Still holding off on dairy though.

So, I guess to answer your question, he’s really been doing very well for the past month or so in terms of his reflux and MSPI – at least the soy part of it anyway. Reflux has probably been mostly under control since mid-December.

I don’t know if this helps, but Tiffany (Mom2Seth) has mentioned a few times that her doctor believes that kids grow out of this when they reach 25-27 pounds (I think that’s the number, it might be 27 pounds). I’m not sure if that’s really the case, but Owen is probably weighing at least 27 now (my husband thinks 30 but we haven’t weighed him lately) so I don’t know if that has helped or what.

He did wake up at the crack of dawn again today (5:15 am) but ate a whole banana, a whole veggie sausage, a piece of soy cheese and a bunch of dried cranberries along with his cup of soy milk so I don’t think the lack of medication is hurting his appetite! Man, that kid can eat some days!!!

[Anonymous]

Thanks Laura. Glad he’s doing so well.

[Author]

Posts