*Read this if you have a frequent night waker!*(NCSS /Food intolerance success story)

[Kiwi Mama]

I just wanted to share my story with everyone here in the hope that it might help someone else. We're co-sleeping and demand feeding.

DD is 6 months old.

2 months: started feeding to sleep as she was getting difficult to put to sleep and I had a sore back to couldn't rock her

3 months: started NCSS with the Pantley Pull Off to try to wean the suck to sleep association as it was taking a long time to get her to sleep at night with the sucking/burping cycle. Waking about 4 times a night.

4 months: sleep getting worse, started waking about 6 times a night. Ramped up the NCSS and started adding in night time routines, pre-nap routines, etc.

5 months: started patting her whenever I nursed her, then would pull off and keep patting. Eventually she got the hang of it and would let me pull away but keep patting. Maybe once a night I could pat her back to sleep when she woke. But night waking getting worse and worse, up to 8 or more times a night. It got so bad that sometimes she'd be awake every 20 mins between 2-4am. Sometimes she'd only go back to sleep lying on my chest, feeding.

Now, at around this stage we cut out dairy. She got less gassy at nights so at least I didn't have to burp her as much and that cut out a couple of wakings. Then a couple of weeks later I read about food intolerances and suspected she might have a salicylate or amine sensitivity. I did the full on RPAH Elimination diet (I'll link to it at the bottom of the post) and initially things got no better. I made a mistake with the diet on day 8 (ate overcooked meat, very high in amines) and things got really bad for 6 days. Then suddenly, at about the 2 week mark, things dramatically improved.

6 months: Now, at day 17 of the Elimination Diet, DD only wakes about once or twice a night. My husband can put her to sleep (I posted about that on a recent post) really easily now.

I have my evenings back, no longer needing to nurse every 20-40 mins! I have my nights back, getting 3 hour stretches of sleep for the first time in months! I have a calm, happy baby who fell asleep in my arms tonight while my husband was reading a book to me and she wasn't even feeding.

Links:
www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info (I have no part in this organisation by the way) - I highly recommend the books from that site, they explain it very well.
http://www.sswahs.nsw.gov.au/rpa/allergy/ (under "Food Intolerance") - great books from them too.

[MomtoJGJ]

That's excellent! I'm glad you figured out her problems! What a great mommy!

[Firebird Rising]

Thank you so much for posting this :)

I'm so glad NCSS worked for you. I know moms are always asking for success stories here.

:heart

Jen D.

[musiclady]

great news. We had issues with our now 2,5 year old. Turned out to be caffie and now even if she has a little chocolate, restless for 3 nights.
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[Sunshine]

I'm so grateful for this post, it was very helpful! I saw this post and that my prayers had been answered, no luck. Yes my baby wakes verrry frequently as outlined here and since birth too. As far as food, I do not eat dairy and I eat only non-processed food every day. I even eat my organic oats dry, uncooked. I mention this to represent the extreme of my non-processed diet. I eat only whole foods as grown so my diet is very clean so I don't think it's related to diet especially since there is no pattern to food/sleep length. It's all over the place from night to night. So any other ideas for me? I made a new thread since I am discussing ending co-sleeping which I think is a different slant on the resolution.

[Kiwi Mama]

Hi Sunshine
The thing about the Failsafe diet is that it's not just non-processed foods, because the chemicals that cause this problem occur in natural foods such as fruits and vegetables! For example, I've so far worked out with my daughter that she's very sensitive to amines - occurs in chocolate, strong cheese and red wine (hence why a lot of people get migraines from these) but also happens to occur in well-cooked or aged meat (and almost all supermarket meat is vacuum packed for months to age it). So if we have one serving of well-done meat, DD will wake up 8 times a night again for about 5-6 nights in a row!

I'd recommend getting the Failsafe Cookbook if you can and trying the diet. You've got nothing to lose and potentially a whole lot better sleep to gain!

By the way, is there a family history of behavioural problems, ADHD, migraines, irritable bowel, asthma? These are some of the common symptoms you'll see in a food intolerant family.

[lotsoflovehere]

WOW! that's awesome. I need some more time to check the links...they look great!

[katiekind]

I am impressed by your dedication to meeting your baby's needs, day or night. :tu I'm thankful you uncovered a reason for her waking! What a great thing! Sometimes we find out a reason, other times we never know, we just have to help them as best as we can.