Essays & Articles
One reason your child may not be sleeping through the
night
by Bobbi Ann Johnson Holmes
When bringing a newborn baby home from the hospital, most new parents expect
a few sleepless nights. However, when an uninterrupted night's sleep becomes
a distant memory, and it is no longer weeks, but months or years since you
experienced one, a parent may grow angry, frustrated, and exhausted.
Our
firstborn, Robert, was nine-months-old when a girlfriend mentioned that her
month-old daughter was regularly sleeping through the night. I was overcome
with bitter envy, for it was a feat our son had yet to do. Finally, at
twelve months, he slept an entire night. I was elated, believing we'd
finally overcome that particular hurdle. Unfortunately, it was the
only complete night's sleep we would enjoy for the next four years.
Three
pediatricians insisted Robert's problem was not unusual, and that he would
eventually grow out of it. He had no problem going to sleep. In fact,
at bedtime he never resisted, and drifted off to dreamland with relative
ease. Yet, within an hour after my husband and I went to bed, he would
wake up. Sometimes those nocturnal activities would include diaper changes,
or eventually trips to the bathroom. Often they would be repeated
throughout the night, and would require a great deal of coaxing before sleep
was again achieved.
Sometimes
Robert would behave erratically, flailing around restlessly, being cranky
and irrational. Had I not personally supervised his daily care, I
would have suspected these nightmarish fits were the product of some daytime
trauma
As my husband
and I desperately sought an uninterrupted night of sleep, we began trying
every trick imaginable. As per advise from the experts, we briefly tried the
tough love routine, where a parent checks for the obvious (such as wet
diapers), and then walks away, allowing the baby to cry himself to sleep. It
was agony for all concerned, and did absolutely no good. Someone suggested
that Robert might be waking up, when we all went to bed, due to the absence
of noise. My husband immediately purchased a small radio for the nursery.
Another article said warm milk before bedtime would do the trick, while
another suggested no beverage. We rocked, walked, ignored, coddled, fed,
gave beverages, and took them away.
The most frightening aspect of this type of problem is what sleep
deprivation can eventually do to a parent's state of mind and judgment.
I recall one instance when my husband snapped, and began shouting at our
wakeful two-year-old son. It so terrified our child, it caused him to
literally forget to breathe, and then he broke into a heartbreaking silent
sob. My husband was devastated by his own behavior, and we were
always grateful that those years of sleepless nights didn't escalate into a
more severe situation.
By the time Robert was three, we moved to another community, and
new doctors. But two doctors later, and a son nearing kindergarten,
still had not provided us with a complete night's rest. I wonder about
those doctors, who chose to discount our problem, ignoring what it could be
doing to our family, and how even the best parents might slip into child
abuse when sleep is not sufficient.
But young parents were taught to trust doctors. And when five MDs
tell you the same thing, over and over, you tend to accept their diagnosis.
But I, a much older and wiser parent, will no longer do that.
When our son was in kindergarten, our small town lost its only
doctor. Filling in temporarily was a young nurse practitioner.
Our daughter, three years younger than her brother, came down with an ear
infection, and so I took her to see this young woman. In the course of
the appointment, I began chatting with the nurse about the sleeping problem.
She looked up at me, and immediately said, "It sounds like a
classical food allergy."
Food allergy? I was stunned. Not only had no doctor ever
mentioned such a possibility, I'd always considered myself rather savvy when
it came to nutrition. Processed food, fast food or junk food had never
been part of our family's diet. Not only had I breast fed, but my
children had only been offered homemade baby food, and I tried to make
healthy choices when planning family meals.
She explained we would need to isolate certain food groups, to
determine if he had a food allergy. The first food group she wanted me
to eliminate was dairy. When Robert came home from school that day, he was
given no milk. Miraculously, from that evening on, he began sleeping through
the night.
We were fortunate that the first food group isolated was the
culprit. I dreaded the possibility that it could be wheat, which would have
meant a complete overhaul in our family's eating habits. But, it would have
been nice had we discovered it four years sooner!
Ironically, our son never cared for dairy products. Often
we had to coax him to finish his milk, after all, don't children need milk?
And while he enjoyed ice cream, as do most youngsters, he was never fond of
cheese. By his indifference to dairy products, his body was trying to
tell us it couldn't handle them. Unfortunately, we failed to listen.
Milk products did not just
influence his sleep patterns, it caused
serious behavioral problems. Remember that secret potion that changed
Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde? For Robert, that would have been
be a glass of milk. I recall one afternoon (before we were aware of the
allergy) we awarded our 4-year-old son with an ice cream cone. It was
a rare treat, and one we soon regretted. Within an hour he changed
from a well-behaved boy into a hellion. The mood changes were drastic.
At the time I was a bewildered young mother, who muttered helplessly to her
husband, "Why? Why is he acting this way?" Had I only known, I was
feeding Robert a behavioral modifying food!
Other
symptoms of a milk allergy might include cradle cap, stuffy nose or dark
circles around the eyes.
We attempted giving our son dietary supplements, to compensate for
the calcium missing in his diet. Unfortunately, the expensive vitamins
prescribed were so unpleasant, that I often found them shoved under the
couch. We eventually began giving him Tums and using goat's milk.
Robert is nearing his 22nd Birthday, and he seems to have long
since outgrown his intolerance for milk. Yet, he still is not overly fond of
dairy products.
Over the years I've read a variety of parental guidance columns
and articles, where the experts are doling out the same advise once given to
my husband and I; "They will outgrow it; let them cry”, while ignoring one
possibility. It saddens me to think that many families might be needlessly
suffering with this problem - for weeks, months and even years.
Letter from a reader,
in response to the above article:
Oh
my goodness! . . . It worked like a charm. I can't believe it. I'm so
grateful to you. My son looks so much healthier. My husband and I
are getting along better. My neighbors keep telling me "how good I
look". Probably because they got used to seeing me with big bags under my
eyes, my hair in a pony tail and my sweatshirt and jeans all the time.... in
a nut shell; exhausted. Some of my coworkers think I'm on "new medication"
I'm sure because I'm cheery again. : )
I called my son's
Pulmonologist/Allergist to discuss your article when I read it and he
immediately dismissed it. I finally worked it into our discussions gently
after that and he is going to do some "official" food allergy tests on my
son next week. I think dairy may be his asthma trigger too and we have just
been treating the symptoms of the asthma without removing the trigger.
Like you, I had been
through 3 Pediatricians, 1 Dermatologist (for the eczema) and one
Pulmonologist/Allergist. As you did, I' would mention the sleeplessness to
every doctor, nurse practitioner and every parent that would listen for 4
years. None knew about the connection. I'm so discouraged with the medical
field now. I am trying to figure out how to get the word out to the
medical community. I suspect now that if the eczema had been connected to
me introducing a milk based formula to my son's diet, that he may not have
developed other allergies, including asthma. But who knows? I am trying
to get passed my frustration with this, but if I can figure out how and
where to change the process, to spare other families this, I would. . .
Again, thank you,
thank you, thank you!!
(name withheld)