Does restless sleeping always = allergies?

[wagamama]

My ds is almost two. He has been a terrible sleeper since birth -- restless, waking every hour, sleeping only 9 hours/night. I keep reading that if your child is a restless sleeper, you should suspect food allergies. However, we did a strict 3-month elimination diet (no dairy, soy, chicken or beef for all 3 months; no gluten for 6 weeks), and I saw no change at all in his sleep habits, so I gave up.

I'm wondering -- do all allergic children sleep badly? Are there some allergic children who sleep well?

I'm at my wits end with this -- so exhausted after two years of being woken up all night by ds .

[sbgrace]

Well my food allergy guy slept very well up until age 2.5. It was at that point that his environmental allergies were kicking in and he started having severe eczema and then hives.
But no I don't think food allergies always equal bad sleep. It would depend on if the child is itchy or otherwise uncomfortable. This is going to be unpopular but you could try an antihistamine and see what happens. If his sleep is better I'd say it is allergy related. Benadryl requires an awful lot of dosing. My son started zyrtec when the hives developed. After over 6 months of terrible sleeping suddenly he was back to his old self. Undoubtedly in his case it was allergies. Something to think about. If you didn't want to do that you might be aggressive in getting any eczema or rashes that might itch under control and see if that helps.

[goomjiji]

I wouldn't say that allergies always create trouble sleeping, but that has certainly been my experience. We have the food allergies under control, but environmental allergies kill us in the summer. DS (2.5) was up 4 or 5 times last night. It was every hour for the longest time and I nearly lost my mind. The only time we get a break is when we dose him with Zyrtec, but I really don't want to do that every day.

[caholcomb]

Allergies (both food and environmental) have affected sleep in our house. My dd had a hard time falling asleep and woke up every 45 minutes thereafter until she was 18m. That is when we discovered the dairy sensitivity. After following elimination diets, we also discovered further sensitivities to tomato, egg, apples, sugar and chocolate. She is now 4 and still wakes up at least once just to say hi. She was diagnosed with dust mite, cat and dog alelrgies a few months ago. Since then we have bought mattress encasings, are learning to dust and regularly wash her linens, and moved the cats outside. All of this seems to help her be able to relax and fall alseep easier and to have a more restful nights sleep.

I totally understand about going for extended periods of time with very poor and very interrupted sleep. When you do finally get a few hours in a row, you are going to feel like a whole new person.

You mentioned your elimination diet. Did you also try eliminating sugar, dyes, chocolate, corn, eggs, tree nuts, shell fish, citrus, strawberries, and tomatoes? These are also common food allergies. Or have you considered environmental allergies??

I would recommend reading "Is this your child" by Dr. Doris Rapp. The book talks about how to detect food and environmental allergies yourself. Very useful book.

[JaneS]

In our case yes, and the resulting nutrient deficiencies caused by a damaged digestive system also effects sleep. Nutrient deficiencies take a while to correct.

My DS has many other allergies and intolerances not on your list of eliminated foods which would have still effected him greatly. (Rice, eggs, nuts, apples, grapes, pineapple, sugar for ex.) I wouldn't rule out food allergies just yet.

What's his poop like? If it's smelly and loose, suspect allergies.

[purple_kangaroo]

My sympathies. My youngest daughter hardly slept at all for about a year and a half.

Another factor you might look into is reflux. It can be present with or without allergies, and it hugely affects sleep. When your son was a baby, did he fall asleep when being held and then wake up when laid down, or need to be held to sleep? Does he doze off and then wake up crying sharply? Did he want to nurse constantly as a baby, or have unusually short nursing sessions, or fuss and squirm while nursing?

Two of my kids had reflux where they spit up huge amounts, but the one with the most severe reflux rarely spit up.

Corn was my daughter's biggest allergen. It wasn't until we removed ALL corn derivatives and foods cross-contaminated by corn (i.e. potato chips made on the same equipment as corn chips, etc.) from her diet (and mine, since she nurses) that we really saw a big change in her behavior and sleep. Putting her on reflux medicine helped too, but her reflux gets much worse and is uncontrolled by the medicine when she gets exposed to her allergens.

[daniusa]

not restless sleep but wanted to add sometimes food allergies affect sleep in other ways - gluten allergies can actually make children laugh in their sleep.
my son used to always crack himself up in his sleep - and that stopped after we found out he is allergic to gluten and he stopped eating it. i read about the laughing after the fact and found it very interesting.