baby insomnia!!!!! eeeek!!!

Skyler has been not sleeping very well AT ALL these past couple days, His eyes are wide open, but hes got that " havent slept in a while but i cant sleep" look in his eyes all puffy. I can get him to go to sleep for about 30 minutes then he'll be wide awake again. He was sleeping 2-4 hours sometimes even 5 or 6hours. He doesnt seem to be sick or anything. no fever. Just wont sleep. What should i do? I've tried new age music, which works sometimes, pacifier, singing, talking to him quietly, rocking him, the infamil AR LIPIL (hes bottle fed) that is thicker with added rice starch which USED to work cus it would make him full longer and sleep longer. He HATES the baby swing, i think hes just too young for that. He was a great sleeper, But lately i cant get him to settle down, hes just wavin his arms around and kickin and just wants to play. any suggestions????? I've hardly slept in 2 days.....ZZzzzzzzzzzzz. I'm going to try to take a warm lavender and chamomile (baby wash) bath with him and see if that will help.

 

Does he sleep better if you lay down with him? Lay him on your chest and see what happens. That always made my girls fall asleep that young.


I would advise against adding rice to your bub's formula-his little digestive system can't handle it, yet.

 

I thought I would go insane with my second baby....he would sleep for 6 hrs, then wake up for 6 hrs and while he was awake he would cry the entire time. But then he would go back to sleep for 6 hrs and wake up again for 6 more hrs of crying...this went on for couple months. It didn't matter if ya fed him, changed him, or paced the floor with him.
Thank God he out-grew that!

 

My daughter never slept much. Still doesn't. She has always been perfectly happy to go to sleep at 11 or so and get up at 6. She never napped either. She is 7 now and still wakes up in the night and wanders around, reads, plays. Whe she was very little and I was going to school, I would just put her in my bed and we would both sleep. That was about the only way to get her to sleep. Of course, I always got up at 4 am to do homework. Now, I get up early to do housework.
Anyway, I would try sugrmag's suggestion. The lavender baths are nice too. Or maybe try giving him a massage, sometimes babies really love that. Just be very gentle. Good luck.

 

Those AHA formulas can really upset a baby's stomach. See if you can get a "Lipil free" formula, if they even still make it. The rice starch formula have never been proven to be beneficial to babies at all. It doesn't "keep him full" longer, it basically just sits in his stomach like a rock. A normal healthy full term baby should be feeding about every 1 to 3 hours, no longer than that. Using a less heavy formula could help a lot. The idea isn't to get him to "sleep a lot" but to allow him to sleep when HE needs it. My first baby only slept 8 hours out of every 24, and most of that was in 45 minute naps. That's just the way she was.

Keep him close, in the body sling, not the baby swing, and keep your car seat in your car ONLY! No carrying him around in the car seat, don't even take it out of the car. The more body contact he has, the happier he will be.

Breastfeeding moms have guarentteed body contact. If you are formula feeding, you actually have to add MORE body contact than normal. The happier he is, the more likely he will be to sleep when HE needs it.

Good luck.

 

my niece required swaddling, and mylicon drops for her belly. she wasn't breastfed, either, just couldn't manage it, mom was under far too much stress, what with daddy dying and all. the tight wrapping helped quite a lot. i cuddled her on my chest tightly on the couch and that seemed to really soothe her.

 

Swadling is great. It can really calm babies down. Then holding them tightly, like KC said, is wonderful.

 

"AHA and DHA are a blend of nutrients found in breast milk" which the cans say. Its the same formula they gave my baby at the hospital, and since i was unable to breastfeed, i just give him that cus it was most recommended by pediatritians and i want to give him the nutrients he needs that support brain and eye development. Ive never heard of it upsetting a baby stomach, but he has had some upset stomaches when he was a couple weeks old. i .where did you hear that lipil was bad? ive been under the impression that its the best.

 

you just never know what your baby is going to be able to drink, seriously. it's why i'm glad i was able to breastfeed for so long before resuming my meds. makes it so much easier. you may have to try several different kinds, which sucks.

 

i was gonna wait to get back on meds,but i just couldnt do it, which sucks, i feel bad that i couldnt breast feed ,

 

yeah, it was really rough going without the meds, and i couldn't exercise without them. so, i'm a wreck in terms of my physcial conditioning, but my baby is well. we couldn't afford formula then, anyway.

 

If you can afford it, try a different formula. My daughter was mostly breastfed, but she refused to take breast milk from a bottle, so when I was a school, she had formula. It took a couple of tries to find one that agreed with her. I used the Carnation kind, I don't even know if they still make it, but it did the trick.

 

hes starting to do alot better now, since i stopped giving him the kind with rice starch..... im wondering,,,,,,,,hmmmm .... it could be that.

 

wic and foodstamps can take care of formula, if you really need your meds when you have your baby, like breastfeed for a little so they get the colostrum. i dont pay for formula at all. i dont know what kinda meds you take, but i have to take kolonopin, and lexapro for anxiety, and its a no no with him no matter what.

 

What the can doesn't tell you is that NO ONE know exactly how much AHA and DHA are IN human milk, also the DHA and AHA in formulea are NOT OKed by the FDA, because they couldn't prove they are beneficial to babies in any way. The DHA and AHA in commercial formulea are made from mold and sea weed, not the same as DHA and AHA made from a womyn's body. The FDA refused to grant "drug status" to these forumlea and tried to keep them off the market, but as formula is not a drug, but a food product the formula companies were free to put ANYTHING into those cans that they want.


Where have I heard these formulea are hard on babies stomachs? I am a Board Certified Lactation Consultant and myself and my collegues have seen hundreds of terribly tummy achey, clay stooled, green pooping gassy babies from these UNTESTED formulea.

The rice starch formulla are also NEVER been proven to do anything benefial for babies. The "AR" was originally put on European cans to designate "Anti-Reflux" but as there is absolutely no medical proof that these "thickened feeds" do anything for real reflux the FDA was able to step in and not allow THAT on the can. So the name was changed to "Added RiceStarch" a bit of a bulky name for an incredlibly bulky forumla.

There is simply no proof that AHA DHA formulea have any benefits long term, for full term infants (the ONLY studies done on these types of formulea were ones with SHORT TERM use on VERY preterm infants) so common wisdom is, if you must use formula, use a NON "thickened" non DHA type.

There is an organic brand called "Baby's Own." Dakota's Mom (one of our regular members) used it for her adopted son and the had quite good results from it.

You may want to look into this brand, or if he continues to be ill, either loook into donated human milk, or see a Lactation Consultant (private practice NOT the ones at the hospital) to relactate so you can provide milk for him youself, even if it is only a fraction of the food he needs, human milk, either donated, or relactated could really help him heal feel better and have comfortable sleep and digestion.

Blessings, I hope your baby feels better.

 

Actually neither one of these drugs are contraindicated during lactation.

Lexapro is not the choice drug to be taken during lactation, though. Zoloft and Paxil are given by most good doctors when seeing a pregnant womyn or breastfeeding womyn. BUT, in cases where the drug is the only one which works for you, it CAN be use, as long as the child is observed for undue sleepiness, which is rare, and can actually be corrected by either taking an other agent or reducing the dosage.


I have taken Klonopin and Zoloft during two pregnancies and while nursing two of my children into toddlerhood. The younger one is 5 and is reading at the level of a nine year old. The other one is in the gifted program. My OB, the perinatologist, my neurologost and my pediatrician worked as a team to control my chronic pain and depression, because there was NO WAY I was not going to breastfeed. I didn't take meds with my two older kids,(who were born in 86 and 88) because the medical profession hadn't caught up with lactation science enough to treat me.

MOST drugs are fine during lactation. Antidepressants, are luckily, among the drugs which are usually fine. (Prozac can cause irritability, so other agents should probably be used, but the SSRI class has a LOT of drugs in it, your depression can be controlled while still allowing lactation to continue.)

 

Anna, honey, I hope you don't think I am jumping on you. Not at all. I just want you to have the proper information.

Hugs,

Maggie

 

my lactation consultant told me that i cant take lexapro and breast feed, and i couldnt take paxil or zoloft, ive been on those before and i hated them . Then i asked about kolonopin, and they said thats not good either, plus, i was just too scared to do it cus i had to quit taking it during pregnancy , it can cause fetus to become deformed, so i didnt want to take any chance that it could be harmful to my baby. i asked my midwife, my lactation consultant at WIC, and one at the hospital, and i got all kinds of different answers, so i decided to not take any chances. another big reason why i didnt breastfeed, is that i had a labor complications, and i ended up being in labor for 4 days (they didnt think it was real, cus i wouldnt dialate. ended up having a problem where i couldnt but i was in labor) and after 2 hours of pushing, they had to rush me to operating room, and i was so sore, i tried to breastfeed, and it hurt no matter what position they had me arrange him in. and then my incision got all infected with cellulitis.

 

I'm sorry you had so much conflicting information. I can assure you Klonopin most likely does not cause fetal deformities. (OK, the risk of cleft palate is raised minutely, but my docs were not the least bit worried.)

It is hard, when you have health problems and all the "experts" are giving you different answers. Your best bet on Breastfeeding info is La Leche League Professional Liason Department. (I'm a member.) or a INDEPENDENT Lactation Consultant. There is really a qualitive difference between private practive independent LCs and hospital LCs. The Private Ones are usually more up to date, and don't have doctors to bow down to in order to keep their jobs, so they won't be quoting you junk out of the PDR. The PDR is the WORST place to get breastfeeding information about drugs.

I only use Medications in Mother's Milk by Thomas Hale and/or Drugs in Pregnancy and Lactation by Briggs ec al. Any doctor or LC who doens't have both these books isn't worth their salt. My OB REQUIRES his residents to carry Hale around with them.

I'm sorry you had such a rough time. Try looking into that organic formula, by Baby's Own. It seems to be the best.

(My first and second labors were very similar to yours. I didn't get an infection, but I was in labor for 54 hours and pushed for more than 3 hours with my first one, before they did the section.)

Dakota's Mom is the name of the member who told me about the Baby's Own formula, which she used for her adopted son. I also know other people whose babies did very well on it.

Blessings.

 

i wasn't able to take my meds for my blood pressure. it made kai sick, and we didn't wanna mess around with trying different meds. but my husband has a definite hangup about using wic or foodstamps. he came up really poor and still feels the bite of that stigma and just can't look back.