Sleep School???

[*Tracee*]

Hugs Lori, you know where I am if you need me I'm always happy to pop over to you or for you to come to me.

Shannon may well be onto something with the CMP intollerance. I know you have a history of food allergies so I'd be trying a dairy free diet for a few weeks before sleep school.

[lorzilee]

Thanks Shannon and Joh. Luckily, I my diet doesn't include much in the way of milk products, as I am slightly intolerant (have grown out of it as I got older), but will try cutting out the marg and take note of the others. I have a bad "allergy" family with myself, my mum and my brother all allergic or intolerant to different things, so I'm going to sit down and have a look at wha tI'm eating, and see if I can make some changes there. I was hoping Macy had avoided this particular family trait!

Macy has never been a feed to sleep baby, she's the exact opposite. A speed feeder who is very efficient at sucking me dry!! We cuddle quietly before sleep time during the day and again during the night. She falls asleep easily, but seems to wake just as easily. She's not a great day time sleeper, only about 40mins or so at a time, so I have a little trouble sleeping when she does in the day time. My mum has been great, and has been taking her on weekend mornings so DH and I can sleep in a little. Macy seems to save all her sleep up, and one day every week or two, will sleep all day, only waking for about 30mins at a time for a feed.

DH and I have had a "conference" about what to do, and have decided to bring her into our bed when she wakes during the night and see if that works

Thanks again for sharing your experiences, its great to learn from, because as a first time mum, it can be confusing taking in all the info you are given!!

[Shannon]

Lori, I was amazed at just how much has milk products in it....when looking at a protein intolerance and not a lactose intolerance, all forms of cow milk derivatives make the difference. Bread -most breads have skim milk powder in them, there are some which don't but you have to label check for it. Potato chips have milk powder as part of the flavouring, except plain (der) and BBQ for some reason. Even things like Soy Tony Fergusson shakes have milk powder in them, and only by carefully label checking is it apparent.

Once the baby's gut is stripped (they've gone over their 'tipping point'), any amount of the protein can irritate the gut lining. Which is why most cases of reflux (and colic) don't appear until bubs is 3-6 weeks old, because it takes a few weeks for the gut to get to tipping point. People think it's because that's when mum's milk stabalises and bubs is getting too much milk and refluxing (they call it overflow), but it might just be because of the intolerance.

Anyway, best of luck, I hope you can nut it out. I hope that bringing her to your bed helps you some. *hug*

[~LoriMum~]

Hugs Lori - I totally know how you feel re the sleep deprivation - we have it bad here too and poor DD1 gets cranky mum all the time lately! It's funny what you say Shannon about when reflux appears in terms of cmp intolerance - I suspected by about 3 weeks or so that Sarah had reflux (as Catie has reflux and colic) but as it didn't seem to bother her (besides the fact that she wouldn't sleep anywhere but in a sling during the day and she would fuss at the breast and would projectile vomit almost every day) and she was gaining heaps of weight (she was just weighed as 5.8kg at 9.5 weeks) we didn't treat it at all. Then she got a bad cold and then her immunisations, both of which are known to make reflux worse - from then she's just gone downhill. When I finally made the connection between her night-time fussing and reflux (thought she just had wind...didn't realise the burps were caused by tummy acid building up, etc) I knew that the combination of this and her crying in pain during feeding in the day meant we had to do something about it.

In my reflux thread I mention medications we are trying out, we are also doing all the positional stuff (holding her upright after feeds, beed on an anlge, etc) and off to chiro tomorrow to see if they can help. I am also looking at the dairy option and the fact that her poos are mucousy also points to this, doesn't it? I did voice my concerns for my own dietary intake in my thread if I do take dairy out as well... I need to do a bit more reading and then take the plunge I guess. Not sure whether to maybe also take DD1 off dairy at the same time or not - would she need a calcium supplement if I did?

Anyway, I also wanted to say that having not enough sleep during the day may also be impacting then on the sleep at night. So if you can get her sleeping better in the day maybe it'll then help at night. I highly recommend a sling to get her sleeping better - we have the 40 mins cat nap in a cot too if I try that (but take ages to settle her there anyway, so not worth it for me), but she'll sleep for 2-3 hours twice a day and also sometimes another short nap (40 mins) in the sling most days (unless we have a really disrupted day where she has a few short naps).

Best of luck and keep askign questions - it helps heaps!!