Sleep problems

Allow me a small rant. A rantlet.

Do you notice how people/parents connect babies' sleep patterns or crying (or lack thereof) with being "good," right from the beginning?

"He's a really good baby, he has slept through the night from 4 weeks on."

"She never cries, she's such a good baby."

I take umbrage (yes, umbrage!) with that. Babies don't have sleep difficulties because they're bad, and they don't cry because they're naughty. They wake or cry because they're hungry or wet or uncomfortable or not feeling good.

ALL babies are good!

When Luke was an infant, I heard other parents talk about how good their babies are, how they were sleeping through the night, and could only nod and exclaim how great that was.

Luke didn't sleep through the night until he was nearly one. He woke up twice a night most of the time, and once a night at the very least. Because he was so much bigger than other babies (he was 11 pounds 1 oz at birth), I thought he was just waking up hungry, and who knows, maybe that was it.
But he usually had a hard time falling asleep after each feeding, and I'd often have to rock him to sleep and very carefully set him down again. Sometimes he would cry and cry after being fed and it would take a very long time to settle him down again. I'm guessing those were times I had eaten a lot of milk products during the day. I wish I'd known enough to keep track.

The first time he slept through the night was when he was well into eating solids, and I tried him on a cereal bar and a cup of rice milk before bed, instead of breastfeeding him. That snack became a staple, and he slept much better after that, for awhile. Looking back, I realize there was probably very little milk in that bar and of course none in the rice milk. My guess is that he slept so much better because he felt better.

Later, around three, when his food allergies were really kicking in, he started having a terrible time falling asleep again. His legs were so wiggly he would walk them up the wall, or repeatedly kick his covers off. His body was a bundle of fitful energy, even when he was very tired from a long day. For a long time, at least a year or more, I had to sit or lay in his room with him every night to get him to sleep, holding his hand, and soothing him down.

And about that time, he started waking up at night again, several times a night. Sometimes it wasn't too hard to get him back to sleep, sometimes it took a half-hour to an hour. It was exhausting, for him and for me. I was a zombie.

As we discovered his food allergies and eliminated them from his diet, he found it easier and easier to fall asleep. No wiggly legs, no problems getting out of bed, and when he was tired at the end of the day, he could just lay down and snuggle in. He has been a wonderful sleeper.



He does have a penchant for singing in bed before he goes to sleep, and like any nine-year-old, he'll still try to finagle a way to stay up one more half-hour, or read just one more chapter. :-)

Now, I know that there are many issues that can contribute to children's sleep problems and I would never say that all sleep problems are food-related. However, I think if parents have children with chronic and unusual sleep difficulties, it's another possibility. Here's one site that offers some helpful information, but there are many on the web: http://www.bellybelly.com.au/articles/baby/child-diet-awake.

Just a personal note: I've recently stopped eating dairy to control the inflammation in my neck (which is working amazingly!---subject for another post) and I've been sleeping like a rock! Falling asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow and sleeping straight through the night without waking. I should have done this years ago!


"Sleep is the best meditation." --The Dalai Lama