Wonderful Days, Terrible Nights

[RiverandJulie]

Our high needs baby has turned into a great "almost toddler".  He is 13 months old and during the day he is happy, funny, sweet, friendly and adventurous.  He is great to be around and so much more fun than the high needs baby he was.

Unfortunately nights are a different story.  DS is currently waking up just about every 2 hrs crying, crying , crying.  Sometimes the crying lasts for awhile, but most of the night the only thing that will comfort him is a bottle (cows milk).  The thing is, he is eating soooo much.  He is little (about 19 lbs) and eating 24-30 oz of milk just at night. He is pretty much bottle free during the day, sometimes he will drink one or two of almond milk.

If I try to take a bottle away after he just eats some of the bottle, the screaming begins. 

He eats well during the day, so I just cant believe he is that hungry.  I have tried other methods of comforting (rocking, walking, patting) and it just has no affect except to make him more tired.

I dont actually believe a 13 month old needs to wake up that many times!

I am so exhausted right now,....any ideas or advice welcome!

[LittleBirdy]

First time mom and mine is only 6 months so take this with a grain of salt...

Is he suffering from some sort of indegestion/acid reflux?  I could see him wanting the milk as an antacid, after a couple of hours of lying down?  Just a thought.

[RiverandJulie]

Actually, the longer story is that he got a stomach bug a few weeks ago, and that is when the nighttime got really bad.  Diarrhea for about 10 days, so we kept assuming this was the cause.  But, it never got better, so about a week ago, we took him to the Dr since the middle of the night wakings were accompanied by unconsolable crying, sometimes for hours.

Ped said that stomach bugs can cause secondary reflux and lactose intolerance, so he is on prevacid (day 9 of 14) and Lactaid.  This has helped, the crying is now consolable....with a bottle.  I also think the prevacid causes bad gas, which could be contributing.