Growth spurt versus sleep issues-(Sorry-really long)

[barbarhow]

We are in dire need of some help in this house. I'll give a little little background for those who don't know us. Jack is just over a year. He is a skinny little guy-about 3rd percentil for weight while being close to 75th for height.
2 weeks ago he got a stomach virus which landed us in the hospital overnight for IV fluids. He lost over a pound but seems to have gained it back and then some. He also struggles with frequent ear infections. We are currently on another trial of prophylactic antibiotics for 30 days. If he fails this time we are off to the ENT.
Fot the last several months he has not been a great sleeper. (This after sleeping through the night from 8 weeks until about 5 months.) We had him down to just one wake up per night when either I would bf him or my husband would give him a bottle and he would go back to sleep fairly quickly. Since the hospital he is back up to two wakings per night and sometimes three. :-( I am so sleep deprived it is not funny. DH and I can't let him CIO. We have tried and we cave. Plus he seems genuinely hungry. Today at 4am he chugged 8 ounces of formula (his 3rd wakening) Is it a growth spurt? If so I can live with it. If not-what do we do? I can't really go on like this. His ears are clear-they were just checked. Any ideas, thoughts, encouragement greatly appreciated. TIA
(Have read Mindell, Weissbluth and Burton White-like them all, just don't know which methods to try)
Barbara-mom to Jack 3/27/03

[Momof3Labs]

Barbara, it sounds to me like he is just "making up" for being sick. Colin is a long, skinny guy (10th percentile for weight at his lowest, always 90-95th for height) too and would do this for a little while after being sick. We haven't dealt with something as wicked as rotovirus yet, just head congestion and such, but even after that, Colin would play catch-up. I gotta imagine that the catch-up would take longer after rotovirus, so I would go ahead and feed him when he wakes, and I bet that once he's caught up again, he'll go back to sleeping like before he was sick.

Hang in there!!

[nitaghei]

If he's that hungry, definitely feed him. ITA with Lori - it looks like he's trying to make up for the time he's been sick. Try feeding him the first time he wakes up - maybe that will get you 4 or 5 hours of sleep between midnight and 5 am. Hopefully, once he's caught up, he'll be back to sleeping.

I hear you about the sleep deprivation. DS had wicked ear infections, and kept on waking up after the tubes went in, mostly due to habit. On average he woke up 4 times a night - sometimes 6 or more times - until about 3 weeks ago. I hadn't slept for more than a 2 hour stretch for 8 months. We eventually did do CIO - it only took one night. But it was clear he wasn't hungry - he'd nurse for a couple of minutes and pop off. And he'd been perfectly well for at least a couple of months before we tried CIO.

Nita
mom to Neel, January 2003
dog mom to a cocker and a PWD