Nursing/Sleeping Issues with 4.5Month Old

Contact the LaLeche League - http://www.llli.org/ You can talk directly with the experts. This is the best advice I can offer you. Reflux can be complicated. Good luck!

Sorry for the late reply--my story is very similar to yours. My first baby slept great, no issues, then here came my second baby and WOW! What a difference! He also has reflux, and I also noticed little to no difference with Zantac. However, his ped put him on Prevacid and it works GREAT for him! It helped me stretch his feedings, b/c with reflux it's worse if they get too full. So the med helped me feed him every 3 hours instead of 2 like he wanted. I did cut out dairy, eggs, nuts, tomatoes, and caffeine for about a month as well, then slowly reintroduced each one. Also, if your baby loves to nurse as much as mine, he won't be near as interested in frequent feedings if he has to take a bottle from someone else. So maybe if you can get hubby to help you at nite, he won't find it to be worth it to wake as much. Kinda far-fetched, I know. :) Also, I give him several feedings before bed to stock him up for the night, then I wake him before I go to bed and feed him one more time. He is 7 months now, and he eats around 7-7:30pm and goes to sleep, then again around 10pm-ish. He then sleeps till around 5 or 6, feeds again, and goes back to sleep for a little bit. I work, so him going to daycare and getting bottle fed there has really helped. At first he barely ate at each feeding at daycare, then he realized that was his only option, I guess. Now he does great. I also struggle with nursing him to sleep, because if he nurses anywhere close to bedtime or naptime, he's out. But again, daycare helps, (and so does hubby sometimes) because he's accustomed to going to sleep there without mommy/nursing. I had a much harder time letting him cry it out, more than my first, but then I realized that it's probably b/c my first didn't really do it much. She was a quick learner. What I've done with the baby is let him cry for 15 minutes. If he's still awake after that, he can have a feeding. That's how we fazed out his 3am feeding. He did great learning to put himself to sleep after that. For the first several nites, he cried the full 15 minutes and waited for the feeding. Then he eventually would only last about 10 minutes before falling back to sleep, then 5 minutes. Now he doesn't wake. Occasionally, he'll wake at an odd time, so hubby goes in and holds him and lays him back down. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Well, just wanted to share what I've been doing with my little refluxer, hope you can find a groove that works! Sorry for the lengthy reply!
Good luck!

Your second child sounds just like my second! He spit up so much that we had to have an ultrasound taken while he was eating to see what was going on inside! Turned out he was fine, just spit up a lot. With my third I learned some very helpful information that I wish I had with my second. First, I would recommend reading, "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child". This book helped me so much with getting my 3rd baby on a schedule (I wish I had this book with baby #2!). You should put your baby to bed earlier in the night to have him sleep longer- I know that sounds crazy, but the book will explain and it works. Second, I learned to reduce spit up you need to nurse on the same side 2 times in a row. I usually switched from side to side, but if you nurse twice on the same side you are teaching your body to make more hind milk and less fore milk. The hind milk has more fat and will keep him more satisfied, plus it will stay down better. I hope this helps - it worked great for me and helped my baby be better rested and more satisfied after feeding. Good luck and know that this is really such a short time of craziness - it will all pass before you know it!

Hi there,

I think the spitting up is normal. I thought my son might have had reflux because he spit up so much and seemed uncomfortable sometimes. The doctor offered a medication but I decided to wait it out. I would say after 6 months or so it stopped becoming an issue. My doctor also did a test to see if dairy in my diet may have been the reason. All she did was check his stool to see if there was any microscopic blood, which I guess is an indicator of dairy intolerance. One thing I thought was the difference of whether he spit up a lot or a little on a particular day was my caffeine intake. If I had more than a cup of coffee or two sodas, it seemed to be worse. So I would limit it.
My son nursed to sleep almost every feeding in the beginning. I never felt guilty about it cause it seemed like a nice way to go to sleep, haha! He also nursed every two hours probably until 6 months and then it would go to three maybe fours hours apart. It'll help once you start feeding solids too.
I know this is not recommended, but I nursed my son every time he woke in the night until he was about 12-13 months old so he could go back to sleep, so don't feel bad! Sometimes he would nurse for a few minutes and sometimes longer. When I decided to wean him, I finally cut this nursing out and just gave him his pacifier instead, rocked him, and he went back to sleep.
My son has never been the best sleeper. He is getting better but then we'll have a bout of teething and it will get bad again. I think every baby is different, sleeping patterns included!
At 15 months I weaned my son. At naptime, we read stories and then I rock him to sleep. We do the same thing at nighttime and I don't think he misses the nursings. I do sometimes though! You'll get into a routine as he gets older. And he won't need to nurse this much forever.

Good luck and congrats on your new addition!
S.

My daughter had the same type of reflux. She got much better when I stopped drinking all fresh milk products. i could have cooked milk in food , though, and cheeses and yogurt. She also nursed every 2-3 hours up until she started solids. That helped a lot! Both of my kids wanted to nurse to sleep, but I have found with both of them that around 5 months it caused them to start waking up every 1-2 hours for comfort. My son I had to let "cry it out" which I swore I wouldn't do, but I had to stop waking every 1-2 hours. My daughter did much better. She fussed just a little when I would try to keep her awake during her goodnight nursing and then put her down in her crib with a pacifier. Now I can really tell a difference. When she does fall asleep nursing, she doesn't stay asleep. When I put her down awake, she does! Good luck!!! It will get better!

My kids were the same way; my son slept through the night at two weeks and my daugher ... when she was a baby, I didn't get more than two hours a sleep a night until she was just over two. You said he's at four and a half months, so you can probably try giving him powder formula that is lactose free. If he's having issues with reflux, he may not be able to digest lactose very well; I'd check with your doctor. Good luck!

are you breast feeding or are you feeding with formula? If you are using formula, you should look in to changing your formula. The constant spitting up will cause them to be hungry more often could be one reason for the need to nurse so often. My daughter, at 3 months, seemed she was needing to nurse every 1 1/2-2 hours, so we started adding an extra scoop of formula to her bottles as well as putting this in the blender with a bit of banana. Sometimes we would put a bit of rice cereal, formula and baby food/jar bananas and make a baby smoothie. She loved this , and would go to sleep after drinking down 4-6 oz, and would sleep like 6 hours at night. Are you feeding your son baby foods now? at 4 months is usually when you start feeding them stage 1 baby foods and cereals. in addition to the bottles. So feeding them breakfast, lunch, dinner and in betweens jar foods, you will start to see a longer time in between needing to nurse. We used soy based formula for my daughters. They were never able to tolerate the milk based formulas. So try putting a bit of rice cereal or banannas in the bottles. You may have to use a nipple that has a bit of a wider hole (we had to make the hole a bit bigger, not much, when we did the baby smoothies) .. so trust me, it works. and the pediatrician approved. Hope that helps.

You might try the diet. You could give him some cereal. He is over 4 months old. I know that they say now to wait until they are 6 months old now for cereal, but I did it at 4 months with all of my children and they are just fine. Mine were nursed also. I don't mean like a bowl full or anything, but about 2 tablespoons mixed with some breast milk or some water. It may help his spitting up and things too.

I think that reflux is over diagnosed. All of my children have been big spitters, but none of them were uncomfortable and gained weight so we did not treat it like reflux. As far as the night nursing/sleeping it all sounds normal to me. I think that you may have a child that was made from the same mold as all 3 of my girls! I just kept reminding myself that this too shall pass and it goes by so quickly!

my 4 mo old just started waking up sporadically too. I think most of mine (4) have done that around this age. It could just be a growth spurt. And eating more frequently probably makes his reflux feel better. I wouldn't try formula but maybe give the elimination diet a shot. it'll be a pain for a while but you may figure out if/what he's reacting to.

I would suggest stopping milk. My son would spit up and had really bad gas until I quite, and then it was magic and the gas pains and spit up completely slowed down to a more normal level.
Also, is he getting burped enough? I know that can really play a role in spit up- although I'm sure you're doing it already! :)
Try getting off milk for one week and see if it helps any. You should see a dramatic change pretty quickly :)
Good luck!

Hi,
First of all, the spitting up can be normal, and if as you described it has no effect on weight gain or his mood, then I wouldn't worry too much about it. Three of my four children were big spitters. My first actually threw up quite frequently. The biggest thing I learned with her that helped, was to nurse on only one side per feeding. She was obviously getting too much milk (I've since read some stuff that makes me think that I overproduce, so I think that was part of the problem.) Once I switched her to just one side at a time, she hardly ever threw up. But if I would ever try going back to two sides in one feeding, it would happen again, so I stuck with it until she was quite a bit older.

As for the sleeping, in my experience, most kids require some sort of sleep training to learn to fall asleep on their own. On my third I found a great book called Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child. It explains the science of sleep and also gives you ideas on how to train your child. It was very helpful. If you get bogged down in the science chapters, just skip ahead to the chapters on the different ages.

M.

I also agree with contacting the la leche league. They are a great reasourse for all sorts of problems including reflux, eliminating foods, and advice on sleep issues. They have been a great help to me in the past. I only want to offer encouragement on the sleep issues. My daughter, exclusively breastfeed for 9 mo, slept through the night by 2 mo. But at 11 mo that changed, thanks to teething. She would go through phases, sleep great for a month or two, then badly for a few weeks. I sometimes think that we expect too much of babies and sleeping thruough the night. It will get better, this is truly such a short time of their life. There are ways of teaching them without cry it out (not a fan either). The LLL has books that they will loan out at no cost.

One key think you mentioned was that you felt your little one was nursing for "comfort" mostly. You don't think he gets as much at night. I breastfed my son for 7 months. We did sleep training at 4 months. It was a very big decision for me and my husband. Before I read about the issue, it was an emotional decision. Emotionally, I was not able to take it on. He slept with me so that I could nurse on demand. We slept on the couch. Obviously that would not work forever. We knew we would need to do something fast because the longer we waited, the harder it would be. I read the book called, "Solving Your Child's Sleep Problems," by Dr. Richard Ferber. Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child is another popular book. Once you learn how baby's brain develops and functions according to sleep, you will understand why the American Academy of Pediatrics strongly recommends the ability to sleep independently. Once we understood why it was so important and how it would make a difference in our child's development and overall happiness in the entire house, it was a no-brainer. He started falling asleep within 5-10 minutes the very next day. One thing we decided was to NEVER let him go hungry. We decided to always go to him when he woke crying. We would feed him, change him if needed and give him love. When we put him down, he had to go to sleep on his own. His doctor confirmed there were no ear infections. He woke about 2 times a night until around 6 months, than began sleeping 12 hrs. He did not cry at all when we put him down within a few days, even when he did before, it wasn't a hard cry, just a frustrated one and we knew he was learning a very important skill. Good luck to you. Good sleep is not far away.

Have you talked to your pediatrician about the reflux problem? My second son had it really bad - the Zantac didn't do anything to help so then we tried Prilosec and it helped allot!!! So you may want to investigate other treatments for the reflux. He was breastfed and at about the same age you son is I started pumping and giving him a bottle at night with a little rice cereal in it (the pediatrician told me how much she wanted me to add at his age) and that helped him slept better - I didn't add the rice during the day just at night so he would sleep longer. I also read a post down further about making sure he gets more hind milk - that sounds like it would help too. Good luck I promise its not too much longer till he will be eating food and this will all be a memory - probably not a great one as I am still scared from my son's reflux and wouldn't wish it on anyone :)!!!