Croup and dramatic changes in feeding/sleeping

I have posted this in the feeding section too, thought I would also try the thread in here!!

If anyone has had the following can you please pass on any experience you might have!!

DD is 9 1/2 months old or 7 months 3 weeks corrected.

Two weeks ago, we dropped the night feed and she was having 4 milk feeds during the day and 3 solid meals. Was sleeping through from 7-7:30pm to 6am, prior to dropping the feed she would sleep from 7pm (late feed at 10:30) then sleep to 7/8am. We dropped the feed as she would only have a suck or two and not want anymore and jsut preferred a couple of sips of water.

1 week ago she was diagnosed with croup, struggling to breathe, raspy breathing, chest heaving etc, below the rib cage (@ 4am in the morning :rolleyes:) was given steroids, that night she was up at 11pm, 1am and then didn't sleep from 3am, except for 2 x 5 min catnaps, went down at 7am for a couple of hours, and we just fed on demand.

She also began drinking quite a bit of water, really gulping it down.

Thursday she had the Flu Vax.

Since we have been feeding pretty much 3 hourly overnight, sometimes a bit more often, one night it was just are earlier feed at 5am, we thought that at this stage she was getting over the worst of it.

But the last few nights she has gone back to feeding 3 hourly consistently overnight plus her normal feeds so at the moment she is have 7-8 feeds a day plus three solid meals.

It is really not usual for her...

We think she is getting over the croup, her voice has returned today, and she is pretty happy, except that she is only have two 1/2 sleeps during the day instead of the usual 3-4 hours, she usually has two long sleeps.

But we don't know what is causing the following, could it be the croup, flu vac, growth spurt....:

Large increase in the intake of water
Dramtic increase in the intake of milk (fully BF'd)
Still eating up solids, and having big dinners.

Mummy is getting exhausted being up so often again at night, but it is expected when bubs is sick, at least she is sleeping in her bed for three nights I slept sitting upright holding her! Well what little sleep we got!!

If you have any suggestions please let me know!!

Sorry no one has got back to you on this, I've only just recently returned from holiday and started catching up with the forum.

I think it could be a combination of all three of the factors you mentioned. She may be catching up with her feeding if she was taking less while she had croup, and if she still has a sore throat, she may be feeding for comfort as well - breastfeeding soothes a sore throat and breast milk is a good pain reliever.

As well, the flu vaccine can cause mild flu-like symptoms, so she may be comfort feeding for that reason as well.

Are things starting to settle down?

Also, if they gave Nakita prednislone, this is a steroid which can cause all these things you are talking about.

When my DS2 has steroids, either for croup (he's had it 4/5 times) or asthma (steroids 3 times) he always eats and drinks WAY more than usual for about a week,sometimes a little more.

Just a thought.

HTH

Thankyou both for your responses, it looks as though we might be back again there shortly, nakita has developed all the syptoms again this evening, a lot quicker than last time, so looks like there might be some long nights ahead.

We have a locum coming out to check her this evening, as long as things don't make a dramatic change is the next hour or so.

Thankyou
xxoo

I hope Nakita gets better soon! Thinking of you!