Let's get some sleep! - Page 6

[TzippityDoulah]

Tanya, thanks for your thoughts.

I am taking a prenatal that's form our HFS but I totally forget the name right now. I don't know how great it is comparitively - I was mostly going for buying one free of my allergens. that's not the easiest thing to do either!

about melatonin - I took it once about 2 yrs ago. it was time release - and it was awful! I was in and out of horrible dreams all night long and woke feeling liek I had been beaten up the next day. I've been scared ot try it agian. any idea why that would happen?

my son is only 9 months - so I'm not sure what I can give him yet. melatonin? and how would I go about givinv him magnesium? I can't seem to find any info on baby's and adrenal fatigue or melatonin and so forth. so I feel like I haven't the slightest how to go about dosing him. I'm just not well enough educated in this particular area to start guessing on that one.

We were seeing a great AK chiro - he gave me "destress formula" whenI was having post partum anxiety and it helped a lot. of course I managed my diet and so forth too to make sure I was healing... but with lack of sleep that only got so far you know? But the AK never seemed to know what to do about my son.... great guy but he was just as a loss. and I was tired of spending my hard earned money on remedy after remedy that wasn't working.

thanks everyone in advance! this thread is fabulous!

[TzippityDoulah]

update:

ok so I gave the baby some melatonin last night. and my 5 yr old. both have horrible sleeping problems. I know giving a baby melatonin is iffy - but i thought about it for a long time and decided ot give it a shot. he never sleeps anymore. or atleast he never stays asleep anymore. latel 1-2 hrs at the very most. sometimes waking every 30-45 mins. and needing rocked for 30-45 mins to get back to sleep. co-sleeping doesn't seem to help much either, I just have to get out of bed to rock him.

the melatonin - It didnt do a thing for the baby, I started on a very small dose (very small) so I will inscrease it over the next cuple of days as a trial. for the 5 yr old I *think* it helped. she didn't wake once but sometimes she doesn't wake and sometimes she wakes all night long so it's hard to tell. she seemed much better rested today though, so that's a good sign.

I didn't take it myself b/c I never did get to a place I felt i was getting any worthwhile sleep anyhow - I was up with the baby all night. it seemed stupid to even bother taking it.

[lil_miss_understood]

Originally Posted by HennyPenny

I didn't take it myself b/c I never did get to a place I felt i was getting any worthwhile sleep anyhow - I was up with the baby all night. it seemed stupid to even bother taking it.

I hear that.

[tanyalynn]

Originally Posted by HennyPenny

Tanya, thanks for your thoughts.

I am taking a prenatal that's form our HFS but I totally forget the name right now. I don't know how great it is comparitively - I was mostly going for buying one free of my allergens. that's not the easiest thing to do either!

Did I mention Thorne multivits? I'm not sure if they're corn-free, they may be, and hopefully otherwise they're ok, and they've got real folate and generally good forms of vitamins and minerals, easy to absorb and use. The multivit, the Basic Nutrients w/o copper and iron would be a good start, and then they have separate add-on minerals, Citramins or Biomins I think are the names, and they have that without copper as well. I buy from nationaldiscountvitamins.com they were cheapest last time I compared.

about melatonin - I took it once about 2 yrs ago. it was time release - and it was awful! I was in and out of horrible dreams all night long and woke feeling liek I had been beaten up the next day. I've been scared ot try it agian. any idea why that would happen?

I had very vivid, honestly tiring dreams for the first 2 or maybe 3 nights. I'm not sure why--it was strange, I fell asleep which was oh-so-nice, but I woke up tired from the dreaming. That went away and has never recurred since that initial start-up problem. I started at 3mg which was a good dose for me for a long time, maybe if I'd started at 1mg it wouldn't have happened? And then taken several days to taper up to the amount I eventually need? I buy Thorne melatonin as well, they sell 1mg, 3mg and 5mg.

my son is only 9 months - so I'm not sure what I can give him yet. melatonin? and how would I go about givinv him magnesium? I can't seem to find any info on baby's and adrenal fatigue or melatonin and so forth. so I feel like I haven't the slightest how to go about dosing him. I'm just not well enough educated in this particular area to start guessing on that one.

We were seeing a great AK chiro - he gave me "destress formula" whenI was having post partum anxiety and it helped a lot. of course I managed my diet and so forth too to make sure I was healing... but with lack of sleep that only got so far you know? But the AK never seemed to know what to do about my son.... great guy but he was just as a loss. and I was tired of spending my hard earned money on remedy after remedy that wasn't working.

thanks everyone in advance! this thread is fabulous!

When DS was little, I mixed powders into small amounts of water or juice and squirted them into his mouth using a medicine syringe.

To read about dosing and body weight, in general a good place to look is the autism spectrum world. Melatonin is a very common supp among kids on the spectrum, and although you won't find as much info for a child under 1yo, you will find discussion for toddlers in the 12-18 mo range. I think using good judgement will get you far in figuring out what to try, what's working, what's not.

There's a lot of discussion of nutritional supps and kids in the autism biomed world, and given a celiac diagnosis (malnutrition) and liver stress (the HG) it seems like detoxification and the related discussions may be very helpful to your situation. There are lots of spectrum-related blogs talking about supplements, I found the discussion at the autism mercury yahoo group helpful, though it's a very high volume group, so a lot will not be relevant as well.

Originally Posted by HennyPenny

update:

ok so I gave the baby some melatonin last night. and my 5 yr old. both have horrible sleeping problems. I know giving a baby melatonin is iffy - but i thought about it for a long time and decided ot give it a shot. he never sleeps anymore. or atleast he never stays asleep anymore. latel 1-2 hrs at the very most. sometimes waking every 30-45 mins. and needing rocked for 30-45 mins to get back to sleep. co-sleeping doesn't seem to help much either, I just have to get out of bed to rock him.

the melatonin - It didnt do a thing for the baby, I started on a very small dose (very small) so I will inscrease it over the next cuple of days as a trial. for the 5 yr old I *think* it helped. she didn't wake once but sometimes she doesn't wake and sometimes she wakes all night long so it's hard to tell. she seemed much better rested today though, so that's a good sign.

I didn't take it myself b/c I never did get to a place I felt i was getting any worthwhile sleep anyhow - I was up with the baby all night. it seemed stupid to even bother taking it.

Good that you started low with the baby, I think starting at 1/4 mg or so and working up is very reasonable. I wouldn't expect you to need more than 1mg, maybe at the high end 1.5mg.

Glad your 5yo seems more rested, sorry you still didn't get any sleep. My DD slept better when I removed all the foods she was intolerant of, but you've probably already done that, eh? And magnesium to fall asleep. DD needs a minimum of 100 mg of magnesium each night to fall asleep and her body can use more, I typically give 300mg in the evening.

[TzippityDoulah]

another update:

We do mag (be calm) every other day for the 5 yr old (every day was giving her mad diarrhea!) and we have every intolerance out of her diet for a good long time now. we cook eveyrthing from scratch so no hidden allergens either. we also do fish oil and that definately helps some.

yes me and the girl (5 yr old) have celiac with malnutrition issues for sure. who knows about the baby yet and he is only breastfed and i am gluten free obviously. and I have had liver problems for years. I'm detoxed as best as I felt safe doing during breastfeeding - I aim to do more when I'm done nursing but as this point I'm his only source of food so not sure when that will be! I also can't figure out how to get the baby magnesium. if it goes through breastmilk or whatever... I can't seem to find info on that one. (any ideas?)

oh, and I gave him about .33 mg of liquid melatonin last night. I'm going up to .75 tonight.

I have no idea if I mentioned this (did I?) But my daughter has moderate/severe sensory processing disorder so the "spectrum" websites and info is where I got the idea for melatonin. But I will keep looking there for melatonin ideas for dosage. blogs are a good idea. I know I post all my stuff on blogs so that make sense.

any other ideas? if so please do let me know! you all are a huge encouragement to me right now!! thank you!!

[tanyalynn]

What type of magnesium are you using? Mag glycinate seems best-tolerated; citrate's good for most people, my kids are fine with it, but sometimes glycinate's better in some situations. Other people need to supplement calcium as well as magnesium in order to absorb the mag--they're low on both but can't absorb one without having more of the other.

Laura, this only comes from my situation and my experience/viewpoint, so take it for what it's worth. To me, it seems like the problems of nutrient deficiencies and detoxification, given the situation you described, are fairly long-term deals. It took me more than 20 years to go from "this is a problem" to "this is a crisis I need to address NOW." Both filling you up, nutrient-wise, AND making up all the detoxification and other chemical processes that weren't happening the way they were supposed to before you knew celiac was the issue, well, that's a lot of make-up work to do, it takes a lot of time and at least for us, a lot of supplementation. I guess I'd assume that the baby has probably multiple nutritional deficiencies, probably fairly similar to you. It's just that the road to recovery seems fairly long when you've got stuff like celiac and spectrum-related symptoms going on.

In terms of mag for the baby, I saw supplementation of me helping my nursing DD, but apparently that's only supposed to happen when mom is low. If I hadn't been low, apparently it shouldn't have helped. A small amount of powder, mixed in water and squirted in the mouth was how I gave DS stuff when he was little (for us, lots and lots and LOTS of vitamin C all those times he was sick).

There are general supplementation guidelines in the New Users Welcome file at the autism mercury yahoo group. That's aimed at nutritional support before/during oral chelation, but the nutrients would likely be helpful in your situation as well. The Special Needs Parenting forum also discusses melatonin regularly, you could find lots of threads on it.

[TzippityDoulah]

Tanya,

I liked how you described things - that's exactly what I think really. I know this is long term stuff. I was sick with celiac for YEARS before I had a clue I was having issues with gluten. and though I've been trying to build my body back up getting pregnant in the midst of healing was so hard on my body that in a lot of ways i'm sicker now than I was then (though in other's I'm healthier - especially my mind set!)

I was working on building myself up and detoxing but you now, getting pregnant changes that one a good bit. But now I have to find ways ot work within the parameters of having a nursling whose solely dependent on my milk. and too allergic for me to supplement anything. honestly I adore BFing him and i don't want to give it up - but if i thought it would help I would. I'm so deficient in a lot of things that I worry I'm not giving him much of anything. I mean sure he's growing, but he's clearly defendant. he fusses pretty much all of the time and he never sleeps for starters. I'm off of ever allergenic food and it's helped some - but he needs the vitamins. we did a food journal for months to find out what bothers him. you know how it is. stuck between how to give him proper nutrients without causing him allergic reactions. where do ya start first!?

as far as mercury I KNOW tha's an issue for me. for starters I have a bunch of mercury fillings - but my teeth are in such bad shape I would need teeth pulled out and redone and who has that kinda money?

really i didn't mentioned everything about my health on here only b/c I wasn't sure where everyone stood on this forum about such things. I feel the mom's health has a BIG influence on the baby's but not everyone sees it that way. so I try to feel people out first yk? I've been poo pooed too many times on that one. about me though: I had SPD as a child too (still do but you learn to cope). I was soy formula fed, colicy for months, had learning "disabilities" and so forth. so this is nothing new. the only difference is that it's magnified with my children.

on my husband's side he has some issues neurologically (stuttering - which many people confuse as a nervous habit, which is isn't) and his mother has MS. his sister twitches and has ADHD....both of our families have serious drug addiction issues long stemming from previous generations.

you see where I am going? genetically we should never have been allowed to procreate! haha no really though, I just want to give our kids the best possible foundation so as when they have kids hopefully their children wont be so bad off.

so yeah, back to basics, where should i start? I don't know! but after thining about it for a long time, I wanna focus on sleep. whatever that entails, b/c I know if we get better sleep our bodies witl naturally detox and rebuild a lot better.


again, thanks so much for your wisdom. I am feeling very encouraged! seriously, I can't tell you how much it helps to know i'm not alone in this sleep-nutrition-detox world. I was feeling like such a crazy lady for believing all this is connected until I found this forum!

[TzippityDoulah]

p.s. we use Mag citrate in the "natural calm" drink powder. (I think I said it was "be calm" but I just wrote the wrong thing)

[Theloose]

Originally Posted by HennyPenny

yes me and the girl (5 yr old) have celiac with malnutrition issues for sure. who knows about the baby yet and he is only breastfed and i am gluten free obviously. and I have had liver problems for years. I'm detoxed as best as I felt safe doing during breastfeeding - I aim to do more when I'm done nursing but as this point I'm his only source of food so not sure when that will be! I also can't figure out how to get the baby magnesium. if it goes through breastmilk or whatever... I can't seem to find info on that one. (any ideas?)

In the typical person, mag levels don't change in milk unless there's a major deficiency. I didn't have symptoms of deficiency, and didn't notice much change by supplementing, but dd's low mag symptoms vanished. My pet theory is that it has to do with adrenal health - aldosterone (one of the adrenal hormones) is partly responsible for magnesium regulation, so it makes sense to me that there might be a bigger variation in the mag content of milk when mom's adrenals are affected.

Also, when we're talking detox in here, we're (generally) talking the phase II liver detox pathways, which are very nutritionally-based. Opening up those pathways by correcting the associated deficiencies seems to be key to healing from food intolerances, and seems to be VERY beneficial to the nursling, as opposed to the more known 'detoxes' that generally are NOT a good idea while pg/nursing. Just to make sure we're all on the same page
http://www.tuberose.com/Liver_Detoxification.html

[mamafish9]

Laura, what supps have you tried? Maybe we can help you find some your nursling will tolerate.

[TzippityDoulah]

WhoMe- ok I see what you mean. usually when people say "detox" they mean hard core purging you know? but yes I think you're making a lot of sense about that. I will read the link asap. good stuff! thanks!

mamafish - I've JUST started supplementing. aside from fish oil- which I have always taken for years. I'm starting from scratch with him. I was concerned about reactions and am just realizing his reactions are coming from lack of things (nutrients) not just "allergens". I've wondered this for a while now but I was kinda in a stuck place. every time I tried something I wondered if his even worse sleeping pattern or puking episode was coming from that so I'd cut it back out a few days etc... but now? he;s 9 months old and non better (aside from less visable reflux) so I'm saying forget my old theory - he clearly needs something added, not just stuff taken away. and I'm biting the bullet and hoping I don't give him something that will send him screaming for days!

I've upped my fish oil to make sure he's getting enough. I'm eating only whole foods but obviously I'm too deficient for that to make much of a dent. I just started myself on a prenatal (I know it's so basic, but it was just a starting place)... and I'm not sure where else to go yet. I also have done melatonin twice now.

I'm hoping to add this week:

• "baby calm" Mag citrate
• calcium (I hardly get any b/c I'm dairy free and can't eat most veggies that have calcium do to allergies)
• possibly fish oil directly to him (not just through me)
• something to support adrenals... (not sure what?)

and more, but i haven't figured out what yet. (that's why I'm here )

any ideas?

[mamafish9]

I totally agree that adding nutrients is really important. I ate a good diet, and took a prenatal, and my son ended up deficient in several things (he just has higher needs than what would pass through my breastmilk).

First things I would look at are minerals, and B vites.

For minerals, get a good trace mineral supp (I like the Thorne trace minerals) - ideally without copper. Lots of people are deficient in zinc, molybdenum, and/or selenium, and all can impact digesting/tolerating foods. Eventually you'll likely want to get these directly into your babe (it's hard to correct a deficiency via breastmilk), but get yourself on it first.

Also, magnesium, which you are starting on - take as much as you can tolerate (i.e. almost to bowel tolerance). You can also try Epsom salts baths for you and the babe - 2c in warm water for 20 min, every night (some people get wired in Epsom salts baths, but most don't). Mag can help loads with sleep, sensory issues (my DS is autistic, so I've seen it work), and mental health.

I personally would not supp calcium until I'd been supping magnesium for a few weeks (calcium inhibits mag absorption, and your body can't use calcium well when you're mag deficient.

For B vites, those pass well through breastmilk, so get yourself a good B complex with good forms of folate (folinic acid or mthf folate, NOT folic acid), and B12 (methylcoalbumin, not cyanocoalbumin). Thorne Basic B complex is a good one. You may also want to look at extra B6, and extra methyl b12.

[TzippityDoulah]

epsom salts baths -- I haven't done much in the way of baths b/c our water is very high in chlorine and I have reason to suspect it has lead in the pipes which leaches. (since we moved here my daughter's lead count has gone up which I know isn't due to paints so last possible cause is water. but yeah we are planning ot move as soon as we're able even though we've only been here 6 months!)

so for now I'm not doign the epsom baths but i just wanted to give a reason so you didn't think I was just being lazy