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How do you sleep train a reflux baby??

UserPost

12:30 am
December 28, 2010


apriljenooch

Oregon

New Member

posts 1

My daughter is 5 months old. She was "diagnosed" (based on symptoms, not testing; nobody would do any testing on her despite our frequest requests) with silent acid reflux at 3 weeks old and was on Zantac starting then. She's always been a night owl, and we could never get her down before 11 p.m., but starting at 2 months she was sleeping through the night (8-9 hours). She's never been a great napper, but we take what we can get. I'm ashamed to say we often hold her for her naps just so she'll sleep more than 20 minutes.

Recently the Zantac stopped being effective. She started whining and grunting during the day, and her napping got even worse. We asked her pediatrician if she could get a different medication and she was put on Prevacid, which we'd heard worked great for babies who'd grown out of Zantac. Unfortunately, starting that first night, her sleep became very light. Whenever we tried to lay her down, she'd wake up and start screaming like she was being murdered.

She's now off Prevacid and onto a different medication, but it's been over a week and she still screams for hours every night. The worst thing is that my husband is taking the lion's share of the abuse because I'm pregnant and constantly sick–not to mention it's hard to be excited for a new baby when I'm terrified we'll end up with two non-sleepers! This last couple of weeks, he's been hard pressed to get 3-4 hours of sleep a night, as she won't go down for good until 3 or 4 a.m.

Because of the reflux, we've always had to hold her upright for at least 20 minutes after a feeding–the last of which is when she'd typically fall asleep for the night. So it's only natural that she grew accustomed to being held/rocked to sleep. But now that we (hope!) have the reflux under control with the right medication, how in the world do we transition her to a "normal" bedtime and get her back to sleeping through the night?

Also due to the reflux, she's always been extra gassy, which throws a wrench into any cry-it-out technique, since she may have a legitimate complaint that needs attention. Ironically, her strong personality leads me to believe that CIO may be the most effective method for her, because she can't be soothed without being picked up–heck, often she can't even be soothed when we're holding her.

I just feel as though we've painted ourselves into a corner here. And all that's in that corner is sleep deprivation and a weakly-padded glider rocker. And my butt is asleep.

Can anyone help my sorry butt?

12:26 am
December 31, 2010


Kimberly

Admin

posts 100

We can certainly try!

Can you post back what her daytime schedule and bedtime currently is? Also, how does she fall asleep for naps and at bedtime? How do you get her back to sleep when she wakes at night?

If she's not getting good sleep during the day from naps, then it's very likely that she's overtired and that can affect night time sleep. So getting her to nap better might be the first step.

Has she any other symptoms beyond reflux? Is she eating solids yet? Also, is do notice if she's restless when she sleeps? I sometimes wonder if there's more or something other than reflux going on for some kids, especially when the medications don't seem to work effectively.

Please post back with her schedule details and info about anything you've tried so far to help teach her to fall asleep on her own.

Hang in there!

Kimberly

The Baby Sleep Site (TM)


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