If you had a bad sleeper but didn’t sleep train…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Can all those who want to argue about sleep training please leave the thread? I posted the way I did specifically because I didn’t want this thread to get detailed with another tedious sleep training debate. There are SO many places you can go argue about that!

Please just post your experience if you didn’t sleep train. No advice please, just experience. Thank you.

OP, I can't share my experience (my kids are relatively good sleepers without CIO sleep training and yes I am deeply thankful every day) but I would suggest making liberal use of the report button for off-topic posts or asking Jeff to lock the thread when you feel you've gotten what you need out of it. People around here are absolutely jerks other people's about sleep training and breastfeeding decisions. Hope your family is able to get better sleep soon! <3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just ignoring the pro-sleeping training people for now. No energy to explain why I don’t want to. I appreciate your opinion.

We tried co-sleeping. It was even worse with baby seeking the breast all night, waking every 5-15 minutes and ending up hysterical with exhaustion by morning.

You do not want to sleep train. You do not even want to hear about it. You do not want to hear about so called obvious things to try. So what exactly do you want? All I can say is, your baby needs sleep and it is up to you to help provide her that.

+1

Good-quality sleep for lots of hours every day is essential to brain and other development. OP, if your baby is waking up "hysterical with exhaustion" then you are depriving him/her of precisely what s/he needs for development - it's as if you are feeding the baby McDonald's food or denying him/her the ability to roll over or crawl or whatever.

You need sleep, but more importantly, your baby needs sleep.

You did not read what I wrote. I wrote that that is why we DO NOT co sleep. She sleeps much better in a crib, so that’s what we do.

[Anonymous]

OP, we have many friends with kids who were poor sleepers well into preschool age (3, 4, 5), and who were very clear that they wouldn't sleep train.

Things can improve, and they can also persist for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just ignoring the pro-sleeping training people for now. No energy to explain why I don’t want to. I appreciate your opinion.

We tried co-sleeping. It was even worse with baby seeking the breast all night, waking every 5-15 minutes and ending up hysterical with exhaustion by morning.

You do not want to sleep train. You do not even want to hear about it. You do not want to hear about so called obvious things to try. So what exactly do you want? All I can say is, your baby needs sleep and it is up to you to help provide her that.

+1

Good-quality sleep for lots of hours every day is essential to brain and other development. OP, if your baby is waking up "hysterical with exhaustion" then you are depriving him/her of precisely what s/he needs for development - it's as if you are feeding the baby McDonald's food or denying him/her the ability to roll over or crawl or whatever.

You need sleep, but more importantly, your baby needs sleep.

You did not read what I wrote. I wrote that that is why we DO NOT co sleep. She sleeps much better in a crib, so that’s what we do.

I read what you wrote, which is that your baby (who sleeps in a crib) is keeping you up all night with constant wakings.

Given that, what I wrote above applies to your situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did your baby/child’s sleep ever improve? Either naturally or with non-CIO methods? My baby is 7 months and our lives have completely fallen apart from lack of sleep. I’m too tired to detail all the problems and how bad it is. I don’t want to sleep train but feel we have exhausted everything else, so I’d like to hear only from those who didn’t sleep train and eventually saw improvement to see if realistically there is any hope.

Please do not suggest obvious things like white noise, styles of sleep sack, wake windows, solids, etc. we have Tried. It. All.

Feed your baby when he/she is hungry and comfort when they’re scared. Your reaching the point where your baby gets object permanence and it gets better.

Sorry, OP. It is rough now. But in my experience gets better once the baby knows you will attend to their needs. Are you exclusively breastfeeding? Have you started solids? The more the baby eats and drinks during the day, the longer he’ll sleep at night. It will happen.

Until then, any chance of getting some help in do you can sleep?

Unfortunately we had to let paid night help go because baby developed severe stranger danger and would scream for hours and hours when anyone but us put her to sleep. So my mother just moved in with us to help short term. We started solids and baby is playing more than eating so far but I’m hopeful eventually it will help. I combo feed breastmilk and formula but usually EBF overnight out of convenience. Considering night weaning to see if it would help (baby also has CMPA and I am so sick of the dairy free diet. I do not like breastfeeding anymore).

Yeah so I figured this might be the issue. I asked abovr because there are some key words that flagged for me
My son also has CMPA and are you positive the formula works for him? If you are using hydrolyzed and not amino acid formula please know that alimentum doesn't work for some CMPA kids and dairy hides in everything.
Almost every CMPA kid I know has issues sleeping. My son is just now 4 and we are doing the dairy ladder for the 3rd time. He failed at 16 months and 2.75 years old.
We realized he had dairy issues when I supplemented with formula and he reacted awful. Tried alimentum and it was still awful. I restarted breastfeeding through pumping 10-12 a day to restart my supply at like 3/4 weeks old.
I did it for 2.5 years and would still have slipups for things like medication- he would react to medications that used bovine protein as the growth culture. Some probiotics . Some items that were safe but then they changed the ingredients and it wasn't safr anymore.
Dumb stuff like tortillas with milk or McDonald's french fries. And non dairy doesn't mean dairy free. Eating out was a minefield. People would think butter isn't dairy but eggs are. It was infuriating.

Thanks for taking the time to write this. You are totally right that the CMPA diet is an impossible minefield. I gave up eating at restaurants because yes, sneaky dairy in everything. Processed foods are also impossible because whey in everything. I hadn’t even thought about vaccinations; that makes me despair a bit. No, I am absolutely not sure Alimentum is working. The constant nighttime gas and dolphin-flippering with her sleep sack, grimacing, and frothy poos are gone so I assumed it was working but I guess I don’t know. I actually had not heard of amino acid based formula so thank you.

The CMPA is a big reason I don’t want to sleep train. She was (and perhaps is) legitimately in pain for a long time, and I think it’s cruel to leave her to cry. Again I think sleep training is so great but I’ve seen my child cry for more than an hour without stopping and without being comforted by us being present, holding her hand, etc. it’s not right for our situation. I wish it was!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did your baby/child’s sleep ever improve? Either naturally or with non-CIO methods? My baby is 7 months and our lives have completely fallen apart from lack of sleep. I’m too tired to detail all the problems and how bad it is. I don’t want to sleep train but feel we have exhausted everything else, so I’d like to hear only from those who didn’t sleep train and eventually saw improvement to see if realistically there is any hope.

Please do not suggest obvious things like white noise, styles of sleep sack, wake windows, solids, etc. we have Tried. It. All.

Feed your baby when he/she is hungry and comfort when they’re scared. Your reaching the point where your baby gets object permanence and it gets better.

Sorry, OP. It is rough now. But in my experience gets better once the baby knows you will attend to their needs. Are you exclusively breastfeeding? Have you started solids? The more the baby eats and drinks during the day, the longer he’ll sleep at night. It will happen.

Until then, any chance of getting some help in do you can sleep?

Unfortunately we had to let paid night help go because baby developed severe stranger danger and would scream for hours and hours when anyone but us put her to sleep. So my mother just moved in with us to help short term. We started solids and baby is playing more than eating so far but I’m hopeful eventually it will help. I combo feed breastmilk and formula but usually EBF overnight out of convenience. Considering night weaning to see if it would help (baby also has CMPA and I am so sick of the dairy free diet. I do not like breastfeeding anymore).

Yeah so I figured this might be the issue. I asked abovr because there are some key words that flagged for me
My son also has CMPA and are you positive the formula works for him? If you are using hydrolyzed and not amino acid formula please know that alimentum doesn't work for some CMPA kids and dairy hides in everything.
Almost every CMPA kid I know has issues sleeping. My son is just now 4 and we are doing the dairy ladder for the 3rd time. He failed at 16 months and 2.75 years old.
We realized he had dairy issues when I supplemented with formula and he reacted awful. Tried alimentum and it was still awful. I restarted breastfeeding through pumping 10-12 a day to restart my supply at like 3/4 weeks old.
I did it for 2.5 years and would still have slipups for things like medication- he would react to medications that used bovine protein as the growth culture. Some probiotics . Some items that were safe but then they changed the ingredients and it wasn't safr anymore.
Dumb stuff like tortillas with milk or McDonald's french fries. And non dairy doesn't mean dairy free. Eating out was a minefield. People would think butter isn't dairy but eggs are. It was infuriating.

Thanks for taking the time to write this. You are totally right that the CMPA diet is an impossible minefield. I gave up eating at restaurants because yes, sneaky dairy in everything. Processed foods are also impossible because whey in everything. I hadn’t even thought about vaccinations; that makes me despair a bit. No, I am absolutely not sure Alimentum is working. The constant nighttime gas and dolphin-flippering with her sleep sack, grimacing, and frothy poos are gone so I assumed it was working but I guess I don’t know. I actually had not heard of amino acid based formula so thank you.

The CMPA is a big reason I don’t want to sleep train. She was (and perhaps is) legitimately in pain for a long time, and I think it’s cruel to leave her to cry. Again I think sleep training is so great but I’ve seen my child cry for more than an hour without stopping and without being comforted by us being present, holding her hand, etc. it’s not right for our situation. I wish it was!

You buried the lede here. Your baby has a medical issue that leads you to not want to sleep train. Why not ask if other moms, with similar issues, have seen sleep improve? Now you have pages and pages of useless info/opinions of people who are not in a similar situation, vs. the one poster who can actually give you reasonable advice.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP. I had two kids who were ok sleepers. They both woke 1-2x/night most nights (sleeping through maybe 1-3x/week, depending on teething, sickness, whatever) from around 4mo until after 1yr. Both started sleeping really well (11-12hrs, no wakeups) between 1yr and 15mo. FWIW, they both had dairy sensitivities that they grew out of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did your baby/child’s sleep ever improve? Either naturally or with non-CIO methods? My baby is 7 months and our lives have completely fallen apart from lack of sleep. I’m too tired to detail all the problems and how bad it is. I don’t want to sleep train but feel we have exhausted everything else, so I’d like to hear only from those who didn’t sleep train and eventually saw improvement to see if realistically there is any hope.

Please do not suggest obvious things like white noise, styles of sleep sack, wake windows, solids, etc. we have Tried. It. All.

Feed your baby when he/she is hungry and comfort when they’re scared. Your reaching the point where your baby gets object permanence and it gets better.

Sorry, OP. It is rough now. But in my experience gets better once the baby knows you will attend to their needs. Are you exclusively breastfeeding? Have you started solids? The more the baby eats and drinks during the day, the longer he’ll sleep at night. It will happen.

Until then, any chance of getting some help in do you can sleep?

Unfortunately we had to let paid night help go because baby developed severe stranger danger and would scream for hours and hours when anyone but us put her to sleep. So my mother just moved in with us to help short term. We started solids and baby is playing more than eating so far but I’m hopeful eventually it will help. I combo feed breastmilk and formula but usually EBF overnight out of convenience. Considering night weaning to see if it would help (baby also has CMPA and I am so sick of the dairy free diet. I do not like breastfeeding anymore).

Yeah so I figured this might be the issue. I asked abovr because there are some key words that flagged for me
My son also has CMPA and are you positive the formula works for him? If you are using hydrolyzed and not amino acid formula please know that alimentum doesn't work for some CMPA kids and dairy hides in everything.
Almost every CMPA kid I know has issues sleeping. My son is just now 4 and we are doing the dairy ladder for the 3rd time. He failed at 16 months and 2.75 years old.
We realized he had dairy issues when I supplemented with formula and he reacted awful. Tried alimentum and it was still awful. I restarted breastfeeding through pumping 10-12 a day to restart my supply at like 3/4 weeks old.
I did it for 2.5 years and would still have slipups for things like medication- he would react to medications that used bovine protein as the growth culture. Some probiotics . Some items that were safe but then they changed the ingredients and it wasn't safr anymore.
Dumb stuff like tortillas with milk or McDonald's french fries. And non dairy doesn't mean dairy free. Eating out was a minefield. People would think butter isn't dairy but eggs are. It was infuriating.

Thanks for taking the time to write this. You are totally right that the CMPA diet is an impossible minefield. I gave up eating at restaurants because yes, sneaky dairy in everything. Processed foods are also impossible because whey in everything. I hadn’t even thought about vaccinations; that makes me despair a bit. No, I am absolutely not sure Alimentum is working. The constant nighttime gas and dolphin-flippering with her sleep sack, grimacing, and frothy poos are gone so I assumed it was working but I guess I don’t know. I actually had not heard of amino acid based formula so thank you.

The CMPA is a big reason I don’t want to sleep train. She was (and perhaps is) legitimately in pain for a long time, and I think it’s cruel to leave her to cry. Again I think sleep training is so great but I’ve seen my child cry for more than an hour without stopping and without being comforted by us being present, holding her hand, etc. it’s not right for our situation. I wish it was!

Hi again, Cheetos mom here whose kid started happily sleeping through the night at 2. My kid also had a severe CMPA, which I believed played a huge role in not sleeping through the night. It's an awfully hard place to be in--not sleeping yourself and eating a highly restrictive diet while breastfeeding, on top of dealing with insensitive dingbats doling out cruelty disguised as "advice." I guess what I'd say is, it will get better, you are a great mom who is listening to what your baby needs and other people can go f themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did your baby/child’s sleep ever improve? Either naturally or with non-CIO methods? My baby is 7 months and our lives have completely fallen apart from lack of sleep. I’m too tired to detail all the problems and how bad it is. I don’t want to sleep train but feel we have exhausted everything else, so I’d like to hear only from those who didn’t sleep train and eventually saw improvement to see if realistically there is any hope.

Please do not suggest obvious things like white noise, styles of sleep sack, wake windows, solids, etc. we have Tried. It. All.

Feed your baby when he/she is hungry and comfort when they’re scared. Your reaching the point where your baby gets object permanence and it gets better.

Sorry, OP. It is rough now. But in my experience gets better once the baby knows you will attend to their needs. Are you exclusively breastfeeding? Have you started solids? The more the baby eats and drinks during the day, the longer he’ll sleep at night. It will happen.

Until then, any chance of getting some help in do you can sleep?

Unfortunately we had to let paid night help go because baby developed severe stranger danger and would scream for hours and hours when anyone but us put her to sleep. So my mother just moved in with us to help short term. We started solids and baby is playing more than eating so far but I’m hopeful eventually it will help. I combo feed breastmilk and formula but usually EBF overnight out of convenience. Considering night weaning to see if it would help (baby also has CMPA and I am so sick of the dairy free diet. I do not like breastfeeding anymore).

Yeah so I figured this might be the issue. I asked abovr because there are some key words that flagged for me
My son also has CMPA and are you positive the formula works for him? If you are using hydrolyzed and not amino acid formula please know that alimentum doesn't work for some CMPA kids and dairy hides in everything.
Almost every CMPA kid I know has issues sleeping. My son is just now 4 and we are doing the dairy ladder for the 3rd time. He failed at 16 months and 2.75 years old.
We realized he had dairy issues when I supplemented with formula and he reacted awful. Tried alimentum and it was still awful. I restarted breastfeeding through pumping 10-12 a day to restart my supply at like 3/4 weeks old.
I did it for 2.5 years and would still have slipups for things like medication- he would react to medications that used bovine protein as the growth culture. Some probiotics . Some items that were safe but then they changed the ingredients and it wasn't safr anymore.
Dumb stuff like tortillas with milk or McDonald's french fries. And non dairy doesn't mean dairy free. Eating out was a minefield. People would think butter isn't dairy but eggs are. It was infuriating.

Thanks for taking the time to write this. You are totally right that the CMPA diet is an impossible minefield. I gave up eating at restaurants because yes, sneaky dairy in everything. Processed foods are also impossible because whey in everything. I hadn’t even thought about vaccinations; that makes me despair a bit. No, I am absolutely not sure Alimentum is working. The constant nighttime gas and dolphin-flippering with her sleep sack, grimacing, and frothy poos are gone so I assumed it was working but I guess I don’t know. I actually had not heard of amino acid based formula so thank you.

The CMPA is a big reason I don’t want to sleep train. She was (and perhaps is) legitimately in pain for a long time, and I think it’s cruel to leave her to cry. Again I think sleep training is so great but I’ve seen my child cry for more than an hour without stopping and without being comforted by us being present, holding her hand, etc. it’s not right for our situation. I wish it was!

You buried the lede here. Your baby has a medical issue that leads you to not want to sleep train. Why not ask if other moms, with similar issues, have seen sleep improve? Now you have pages and pages of useless info/opinions of people who are not in a similar situation, vs. the one poster who can actually give you reasonable advice.

Again, I am on tons of other CMPA forums etc. I don’t need that advice right now. My doctor and I don’t believe all my baby’s sleep issues are down to CMPA. I shouldn’t have to explain all this stuff for people to just answer the question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did your baby/child’s sleep ever improve? Either naturally or with non-CIO methods? My baby is 7 months and our lives have completely fallen apart from lack of sleep. I’m too tired to detail all the problems and how bad it is. I don’t want to sleep train but feel we have exhausted everything else, so I’d like to hear only from those who didn’t sleep train and eventually saw improvement to see if realistically there is any hope.

Please do not suggest obvious things like white noise, styles of sleep sack, wake windows, solids, etc. we have Tried. It. All.

Feed your baby when he/she is hungry and comfort when they’re scared. Your reaching the point where your baby gets object permanence and it gets better.

Sorry, OP. It is rough now. But in my experience gets better once the baby knows you will attend to their needs. Are you exclusively breastfeeding? Have you started solids? The more the baby eats and drinks during the day, the longer he’ll sleep at night. It will happen.

Until then, any chance of getting some help in do you can sleep?

Unfortunately we had to let paid night help go because baby developed severe stranger danger and would scream for hours and hours when anyone but us put her to sleep. So my mother just moved in with us to help short term. We started solids and baby is playing more than eating so far but I’m hopeful eventually it will help. I combo feed breastmilk and formula but usually EBF overnight out of convenience. Considering night weaning to see if it would help (baby also has CMPA and I am so sick of the dairy free diet. I do not like breastfeeding anymore).

Yeah so I figured this might be the issue. I asked abovr because there are some key words that flagged for me
My son also has CMPA and are you positive the formula works for him? If you are using hydrolyzed and not amino acid formula please know that alimentum doesn't work for some CMPA kids and dairy hides in everything.
Almost every CMPA kid I know has issues sleeping. My son is just now 4 and we are doing the dairy ladder for the 3rd time. He failed at 16 months and 2.75 years old.
We realized he had dairy issues when I supplemented with formula and he reacted awful. Tried alimentum and it was still awful. I restarted breastfeeding through pumping 10-12 a day to restart my supply at like 3/4 weeks old.
I did it for 2.5 years and would still have slipups for things like medication- he would react to medications that used bovine protein as the growth culture. Some probiotics . Some items that were safe but then they changed the ingredients and it wasn't safr anymore.
Dumb stuff like tortillas with milk or McDonald's french fries. And non dairy doesn't mean dairy free. Eating out was a minefield. People would think butter isn't dairy but eggs are. It was infuriating.

Thanks for taking the time to write this. You are totally right that the CMPA diet is an impossible minefield. I gave up eating at restaurants because yes, sneaky dairy in everything. Processed foods are also impossible because whey in everything. I hadn’t even thought about vaccinations; that makes me despair a bit. No, I am absolutely not sure Alimentum is working. The constant nighttime gas and dolphin-flippering with her sleep sack, grimacing, and frothy poos are gone so I assumed it was working but I guess I don’t know. I actually had not heard of amino acid based formula so thank you.

The CMPA is a big reason I don’t want to sleep train. She was (and perhaps is) legitimately in pain for a long time, and I think it’s cruel to leave her to cry. Again I think sleep training is so great but I’ve seen my child cry for more than an hour without stopping and without being comforted by us being present, holding her hand, etc. it’s not right for our situation. I wish it was!

Hi again, Cheetos mom here whose kid started happily sleeping through the night at 2. My kid also had a severe CMPA, which I believed played a huge role in not sleeping through the night. It's an awfully hard place to be in--not sleeping yourself and eating a highly restrictive diet while breastfeeding, on top of dealing with insensitive dingbats doling out cruelty disguised as "advice." I guess what I'd say is, it will get better, you are a great mom who is listening to what your baby needs and other people can go f themselves.

Thank you. It’s really hard. Way harder than dealing with insensitive people who can’t read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP. I had two kids who were ok sleepers. They both woke 1-2x/night most nights (sleeping through maybe 1-3x/week, depending on teething, sickness, whatever) from around 4mo until after 1yr. Both started sleeping really well (11-12hrs, no wakeups) between 1yr and 15mo. FWIW, they both had dairy sensitivities that they grew out of.

Helpful, thank you.

[Anonymous]

OP, is the problem just the number of night wakes or is it also really difficult to get her down to sleep for the night (i.e lots of wakes on transfers and having to start the whole thing over)? If she goes down relatively easily but is just waking a bunch to nurse back to sleep, you could try to gently night wean her. She’s only 7 months, so maybe pick a cut off time to keep a night feed (say one feed after 6 hours or whatever) but otherwise send your husband in to do the soothing back to sleep via rocking, singing, bouncing, whatever works for her. If she (and he) are used to you simply nursing her back to sleep for every wake, the first few nights will likely be hard. But hopefully she gets the hang of it, goes back to sleep with other forms of comfort from the non milk source, and without multiple night feeds, stops waking so frequently.

This is what did the trick for my son around the same age. Though instead of a cut off time, we did a dream feed around 11pm to be sure he was full. Once he got used to my husband responding to night feeds without milk, he stopped waking, and we cut the dream feed a month or two later when he was solidly eating 2 meals a day on top of milk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, is the problem just the number of night wakes or is it also really difficult to get her down to sleep for the night (i.e lots of wakes on transfers and having to start the whole thing over)? If she goes down relatively easily but is just waking a bunch to nurse back to sleep, you could try to gently night wean her. She’s only 7 months, so maybe pick a cut off time to keep a night feed (say one feed after 6 hours or whatever) but otherwise send your husband in to do the soothing back to sleep via rocking, singing, bouncing, whatever works for her. If she (and he) are used to you simply nursing her back to sleep for every wake, the first few nights will likely be hard. But hopefully she gets the hang of it, goes back to sleep with other forms of comfort from the non milk source, and without multiple night feeds, stops waking so frequently.

This is what did the trick for my son around the same age. Though instead of a cut off time, we did a dream feed around 11pm to be sure he was full. Once he got used to my husband responding to night feeds without milk, he stopped waking, and we cut the dream feed a month or two later when he was solidly eating 2 meals a day on top of milk.

I had been considering night weaning so this helps. Since I’m breastfeeding it’s hard to know how much she’s taking and whether she’s truly hungry but my sense is it’s more for comfort since she used to only wake once a night to feed and now wakes many times throughout the night. I’m so tired I forget to think of things like this. Thank you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did your baby/child’s sleep ever improve? Either naturally or with non-CIO methods? My baby is 7 months and our lives have completely fallen apart from lack of sleep. I’m too tired to detail all the problems and how bad it is. I don’t want to sleep train but feel we have exhausted everything else, so I’d like to hear only from those who didn’t sleep train and eventually saw improvement to see if realistically there is any hope.

Please do not suggest obvious things like white noise, styles of sleep sack, wake windows, solids, etc. we have Tried. It. All.

Feed your baby when he/she is hungry and comfort when they’re scared. Your reaching the point where your baby gets object permanence and it gets better.

Sorry, OP. It is rough now. But in my experience gets better once the baby knows you will attend to their needs. Are you exclusively breastfeeding? Have you started solids? The more the baby eats and drinks during the day, the longer he’ll sleep at night. It will happen.

Until then, any chance of getting some help in do you can sleep?

Unfortunately we had to let paid night help go because baby developed severe stranger danger and would scream for hours and hours when anyone but us put her to sleep. So my mother just moved in with us to help short term. We started solids and baby is playing more than eating so far but I’m hopeful eventually it will help. I combo feed breastmilk and formula but usually EBF overnight out of convenience. Considering night weaning to see if it would help (baby also has CMPA and I am so sick of the dairy free diet. I do not like breastfeeding anymore).

Yeah so I figured this might be the issue. I asked abovr because there are some key words that flagged for me
My son also has CMPA and are you positive the formula works for him? If you are using hydrolyzed and not amino acid formula please know that alimentum doesn't work for some CMPA kids and dairy hides in everything.
Almost every CMPA kid I know has issues sleeping. My son is just now 4 and we are doing the dairy ladder for the 3rd time. He failed at 16 months and 2.75 years old.
We realized he had dairy issues when I supplemented with formula and he reacted awful. Tried alimentum and it was still awful. I restarted breastfeeding through pumping 10-12 a day to restart my supply at like 3/4 weeks old.
I did it for 2.5 years and would still have slipups for things like medication- he would react to medications that used bovine protein as the growth culture. Some probiotics . Some items that were safe but then they changed the ingredients and it wasn't safr anymore.
Dumb stuff like tortillas with milk or McDonald's french fries. And non dairy doesn't mean dairy free. Eating out was a minefield. People would think butter isn't dairy but eggs are. It was infuriating.

Thanks for taking the time to write this. You are totally right that the CMPA diet is an impossible minefield. I gave up eating at restaurants because yes, sneaky dairy in everything. Processed foods are also impossible because whey in everything. I hadn’t even thought about vaccinations; that makes me despair a bit. No, I am absolutely not sure Alimentum is working. The constant nighttime gas and dolphin-flippering with her sleep sack, grimacing, and frothy poos are gone so I assumed it was working but I guess I don’t know. I actually had not heard of amino acid based formula so thank you.

The CMPA is a big reason I don’t want to sleep train. She was (and perhaps is) legitimately in pain for a long time, and I think it’s cruel to leave her to cry. Again I think sleep training is so great but I’ve seen my child cry for more than an hour without stopping and without being comforted by us being present, holding her hand, etc. it’s not right for our situation. I wish it was!

It is okay to comfort her. Seriously- it is ok. If she has recently had vaccines you may see some flareups for awhile and I would consider asking your ped to trial an amino acid formula just in case the Alimentum is not working for your child. Peds gave me the brush off for sleep issues with my kid too. Have you recently had really bad gas or bloating at night? Its awful. It hurts, it uncomfortable, you can get pressure/reflux, etc. The gas and discomfort (dolphin flipping) is a sure sign that she is still reacting to something. You dont have gas every single night IF you arent reacting to something.

We had major sleep setback every time we would trial dairy and for one of his vaccinations about 1.5 ago. It might ahve been the last DTAP which was later than 18 months because we spread ours out. He receives them within the timeframe but we only do 2 single at a time or 1 combo. After 4 months of him getting shots all bunched up and having 1-2 weeks of even more disrupted sleep both my husband and I agreed that it wasnt working for him. It wasnt ever just 1-3 nights, it was a legit PIA for 7-10 days.

We had some vaccines for 4 year and no outlier response. Allergist recommend we trial dairy (not related) at our most recent appt and if he fails, trial at 6+ again. Only one phase 1 week 3 but he hasnt reacted at all. No disruption in sleep, no weird poops, no gas/bloating, no blowouts , no sour breath from reflux.

[Anonymous]

We didn't sleep train - or at least not well. My child finally regularly slept through the night without cosleeping at about 8. Years, not months. This was the only parenting issue that caused severe conflict with my spouse (who wanted to allow cosleeping because it worked in the short term).