Milk allergy and Insomnia?

Infant Insomnia
Chronic insomnia in infants has been linked to allergies to cow's milk proteins. In one study, a group of children with known allergies to cow's milk proteins, as well as a group of children with chronic insomnia but undiagnosed allergies to milk, slept well when milk was removed from their diet and slept poorly when milk was reintroduced. Those children in the chronic insomnia group were tested and found to have allergies to cow's milk proteins. So if your child has chronic insomnia, think about getting him or her tested for allergies.

http://www.webmd.com/allergies/guide/re ... help-sleep

Ok, im seriously thinking about removing cows milk from Kierens diet all together to see if it makes a difference...Hubby and I did some research on this last night and if you google it there are alot of links to studies and information on it...

K sleeps probably on average 4 hours per night...and none of that is more than 1 solid hour...he has always been like it but it is getting worse again...the reflux meds that he has been on make absolutly no difference but he is lacking the obvious signs of a milk allergy (screaming with tummy ache etc). He does however always have 'runny' nappies (which I have always put down to teething etc) and he ALWAYS seems to have a cold and is congested, he snores at night when he is breathing through his nose and nothing that I have tried to clear the congestion has worked (baby vic, snuffle babe, hot water near his cot, olbas oil etc)

Am i being daft...is he just a 'bad' sleeper or do you think this could be linked? Im going to make a appt to disscuss with the GP but just wondered what everyone thought?

ETA...if you have removed cows milk what did you replace with for cereal etc? I know we would have to look at formula's but what in place of cows milk? Goats? soya? rice milk?

It's obviously not something you want to remove lightly but I will say that once we removed all of Oz's allergies he went from waking up every 40 minutes to sleeping long stretches. It wasn't instant but you could see the results within days and it just got better and better. Dairy was the first we removed and we saw a big improvement just from removing it even before we found out about the rest. It takes about 3 weeks for all milk protein to be removed from the body.

Don't hold out much hope for GPs as I have found they are vey unhelpful about allergies and tend to think it's all in the mum's head. I hope yours is better.

There is soya formula but there is some research into it not being ideal for babies especially in boys. But then if it turns out Keiran is allergic then this is probably the formula you would use and if you're baby can't have dairy there aren't a huge amount of other options. Rice milk/oat milk are good for cooking with but they don't have enough of the right vitimins for babies full time use and also there is contraversy about rice milk in children. I wouldn't suggest switching all dairy over to soya as a lot of children who have problems with dairy also have problems with soya.

I would probably push for a hypoallergenic formula rather than just switching to a soya based one.

No, I don't think you are being silly at all. A lot of the symptoms you say Kieren has are classic symptoms of silent reflux, which is often linked to cow's milk protein allergy.

I've never had to remove cow's milk from Bella's diet, but I think if you need to remove it from Kieren's diet, you'd probably be best off taking out all milks based on animal milk (including goat/sheep etc), although Steph (velvetsteph) knows alot more about this, so she's probably be the best one to give you advice.

I'd say it's got to be worth a go.

To add to Freckles very helpful post: Soya allergy and cow's milk allergy quite frequently go hand in hand, so just switching to soya possibly wouldn't do any good anyway.

Just to add Oz was diagnosed with silent reflux too but the meds didn't help. Apart from having an allergic reaction to yogurt he didn't show any other 'signs' of allergies. I did have a feeling he was waking up out of pain as he would need movement or milk to go back to sleep every time he woke but he never had blood in his poos or the other symptoms you see often listed.

Well it can't do any harm to try. Steph has had great success removing dairy from her and Grace's diet. You would only have to try it for a few weeks to see if it works and you won't have lost anything.

I know it is very difficult as there is milk in things you don't even think about but I am sure Steph and others will have some great advice for you.

And if it makes Kieran sleep better well that will be wonderful for the whole family

Just dashing out for a dietician appointment but will come back and reply later this afternoon though you've had some fab advice already

We removed dairy from ds1 diet when he was small because of countless food allergies he was taking at the time, we used goats milk instead and had dairy free yogurts etc., Thinking about it, he was a terrible sleeper, wouldnt nap during the day from about 6 months, when he started having little bits of dairy, waking overnight etc., and when we removed lots of things from his diet that all improved.

Its certainly worth a try!

You're not being silly at all. More than 80% of the world's population lack the enzyme to digest cow's milk properly. It was designed for baby cows, so it's not surprising really. The ratio of protein, carbohydrate and fat means that very little calcium is available for use in the body and it prevents iron from being absorbed in the gut so is a major cause of anaemia in small children.

There's no issue with removing it from the diet. You can easily get everything you need from food. Humans were designed to eat only food and drink water once weaned anyway.

Don't be surprised if the dietician isn't as forward thinking though. Many HPs treat cow's milk as a wonder catch all food.

[fluffycabbage]

certainly worth trying hun, cant hurt at all. when does he have it though? Ive never given cows milk before a year old. When i did, jaden was very poorly and selpt awfully. Took it out and he was fine. he was tested for allergies but nothing came up but hey, it helped, so i kept it out of his diet for nearly a year, then reintroduced it slowly. hes fine now (though is still a light sleeper)
If theres even a small chance that you think keiran could be allergic to milk protein, then you certainly have nothing to lose by trying, and everything to gain!