Sleep Problem for ex-reflux baby 18 mths old

Apologise for length of this post in advance. We have an 18 month old little girl who has reflux which is under control with medication, however as it took forever to get it under control she has a sleeping problem that is likely behavioural. We won?t do controlled crying under any circumstances!!! And are out of ideas on what to do???

The beginning of the night is the main problem as she can wake on average 4 times in the space of 2 hours (a few months ago we did a 24 hour PH test which required us to log her wakings, she woke 20 times that night. In our sleep-deprived state we?d long since stopped working out how many times she had woken and were shocked at this result). Our routine is the same every night - we put her in the cot (in our room) at the beginning of the night, but once we go to bed and she wakes, she comes into bed with us and usually sleeps much better. So the question is in all the reading I have done on co-sleeping and how well its works and the benefits etc? no one ever mentions what they do before the parents go to bed. Are their babies in a cot, or in the bed alone, or do you just go to bed when bub does????

Our issue is when she wakes she doesn?t even look up or open her eyes (we have a camera in the room) she just starts to full on cry. It usually stops within a minute or so of me picking her up, unlike when she had reflux she would continue to scream for 30 minutes or so. We have tried so many things from so many ?no cry sleep books? and nothing stops this or suggests how to fix it.

As a result of months of her being in pain we now rock her to sleep. We originally for about 8 months had her in our bed falling asleep on her own (me still in the room lying a meter away from her not touching her). Now we have the reflux under control we think that the rocking may be causing part of the sleep issue. If I try and put her down awake in the cot, she will just keep standing up thinking it?s a game, this will go on for hours, eventually I pick her up till she falls asleep. How do I go about getting her to go to sleep without me rocking ? something that does not involve her crying????? I?m sorry I have so many questions I don?t know where to start or stop?.

Background: We diagnosed her as having reflux at around 4 weeks old, took her to our paediatrician who said she was too young to medicated. We managed it with natural colic mixture, raised basinet and change table, all was good she slept wonderfully. At around 5 months the throwing up stopped and we had never heard of ?silent reflux? so when things got steadily worse (especially in the sleep department) we assumed it was a sleep problem, then night terrors, and separation anxiety ? all diagnoses from health nurse, pharmacist and sleep nanny. Everyone around us said it could not be reflux she was too old. By 8 ? months she was waking up every 30 minutes for most of the night. Finally after lots of internet searching still knowing something was not right, we diagnosed ?silent reflux? ourselves. At 9 and a half months our doctor on our diagnoses subscribed Zantac at 2 ml a day. Little changed. We booked an appointment with a paediatrician, 3 months later we go in to see him. By this point she was so anaemic and iron deficient (we later found from excessive bleeding in her oesophagus) he took one look at her and said that was the problem, especially with the bad pica with eating paper and books. So we waited 3 weeks for the magical improvement from iron liquid but nothing changed. So we went back. We refused to leave until she was prescribed something else. They gave us Losec instead and finally there was an improvement. We were eventually referred to The Royal Children?s Hospital in Melbourne. The specialists there instantly recognised the symptoms that we were describing and officially diagnosed her with bad Gastro-Oesophageal Reflux Disease (GORD) ? thank goodness someone had taken us seriously. She is currently on 10mg Losec and 2ml Zatac in the morning and again in the afternoon. We have the reflux under control, no more screaming every 15 to 30 minutes ALL NIGHT long for 30 minutes at a time or more. She is no longer iron deficient and all the other symptoms are also gone and she is growing properly again (she was down to 3rd percentile in height and weight for her age at one point, she put on a kilo in 3 weeks once on Losec, she has only just reached 10 kilos) ? but we are left with the latent sleep issues! It?s no surprise though as she was in terrible pain for nearly a year.

I think we should go back to putting her to sleep in our bed at the beginning of the night, I think it will be easier to get her to lie down and gradually get her to go to sleep without me rocking her. However my hubby thinks nothing will change and she will still wake up as she wants us there and nothing will fix that?????

Any help offered will be appreciated. Thank you.

Hi All, I know my note above is lengthy but PLEASE can someone offer us some advice we are DESPERATE!!!!

Sorry, I've been busy over here & missed this post. I can totally understand the desperation you feel. Matilda slept through the night the first time when she was around.... 3.

She had silent reflux as a bub, she also had recurrant ear infections and tonsilitis. She lost weight and no one took us seriously. We had tests for lactose intolerance and other things. She didn't sleep.

It was hell on earth. Matilda is also extremely active and was climbing out of her cot at 16 months. So she had to go into a junior bed. That helped things, it took her a few weeks to get into it but it helped her having a pillow.

We also found that she was allergic to milk near 3 yrs old and it took 4 weeks off milk for her to start sleeping. The milk allergy caused her reflux. All her reflux symptoms and issues and tonsilitis and weight loss.... everything.

So now I generally suggest getting allergy tested as well. Just in case, cover all bases.

Good luck :hug: its hard work.

I suggest you see an osteopath - I took my refluxy non-sleeping DD2 to one and there was an instant improvement. There's a connective tissue thingy that affects their gastric production and if the neck/back/shoulders whatever are out of alignment (usually due to birth or positioning in the womb) then it's irritated and that's when the reflux happens, and that flows onto their sleep. Sorry that's probably not a very good explanation but the osteopathy really does work. It's worth a try!

Thanks guys I so appreciate any suggestions.

Firstly when I was still BF (did so till 16mths) we both went diary free for 6 wks it changed nothing. But maybe doing allergy testing is a good idea, how do we go about that???? Also she already sleeps on a pillow.

As for the Osteopath she see's a chiro once a month and has done since very early, but maybe we should try osteopath instead, funnily enough someone from my mothers group was talking about a good one today.

Tonight she managed to sleep for 1 hour, my DH is currently trying to get her back to sleep, but every time he puts her down she crys, its taking longer and longer to get her down. She sleeps usually 30 min then awake, then it takes 30 min to get her back to sleep and this goes on till we go to bed and she can come in with us. I am just so tired of my life being about running back and forth to her, that is our life we dont have anything else.

Do you think putting her straight into our bed instead of the cot may help her???? I am just so out of ideas and nothing ever changes it just gets worse....

Anyway I'm feeling sorry for myself - sorry! Thanks for all the great advice its so nice to have help.

J x

:hug: I know how you feel. I remember when Matilda was 2 and I hadn't had a full nights sleep in 2 years. I was a complete mess, I told someone today I have no idea how I survived it.

Okay, On the big bed we did:

1 week of me sitting on the bed patting her to sleep in my arms, than 1 week of her laying in her bed with me patting her and laying next to her, than 1 week of me sitting on the bed patting her, than 1 year of me sitting at the end of the bed. She is 4 now and I hold her hand while she falls asleep and it only takes 15 minutes now. When she was two it could take up to 2 hours...

We started with her in our room in the junior bed next to ours, so if she woke she was right there next to me and all she had to do was reach over and hold my hand. This wasn't until she was around 2 1/2 though.... before that when she woke she would scream and cry...

I hear you on the milk diet... I breastfed my second until she was 18 months and consumed not one iota of dairy in that time. Even now we don't keep any products with cows milk in them in our house. Nothing... no biscuits, nothing. Yesterday Matilda had chicken nuggets as a treat, and today she has diarrhoea... just because the coating on the nuggets has milk powder in it. So in our house its a serious thing.

OK – just got back from getting DD down. Turns out DH wasn’t even trying to put her down, she would just start crying, then would settle, then would start crying again. When she cried she wasn’t instantly consolable, and we get the back arching and bad breath etc. etc. We’ve recently scaled back her Zantac dosage (as we think it gives her wind) and at the same time she has had a little growth spurt – DH thinks she has reflux again. We have another RCH appointment next Tuesday which is timely, but guess its back to full Zantac dose.

Thanks for your comments – nice to know we aren’t alone, but so sorry to hear all your stories, I have no idea some days how I make it through, so know how you are feeling / felt. I don’t mind her waking, just not every 30 min, give me a few hours break.

I’m going to try what Christy suggested about the whole getting her into bed without rocking, thanks for that. I don’t mind it talking months, just want a plan of action with a time frame, so big thank you!!!! That is just terrible about the milk how do you cope, guess I shouldn't complain too much.