Case for David Kempson - son waking up hungry at night

I took this questionnaire from one of your child cases that I came across. Hopefully you have some time to add this case to your queue! Let me know if you have any questions.

Questionnaire for Nico, 17 months old.

1. Describe in detail the main problem - appearance, colour, shape etc. What happens, when it happens etc.
His main problem is that he's still waking at night to nurse. We have cut him down to every 4 hours, and we still have to push for that. There is some time every night where he wakes up before 4 hours and cries, wanting to be fed, and we just sit by his crib until he falls back asleep. When I do nurse him, every 4 hours, he eats like he's starving!

2. Describe any pains or behaviours associated with the symptoms.
He throws fits in his crib when he doesn't get milk. He signs 'milk' over and over, crying, sometimes screaming, reaching through the crib for us. We try to give him his binky but he knocks it out of our hands. If we do get it into his mouth, he grabs it from his mouth and throws it out of the crib. If we put binkies into the crib, he grabs them and throws them out. When we pick him up or try to rub his back or something, he screams and thrashes even harder.

3. Describe anything that makes the problem worse ie. position, temperature, food etc.
When it's me that sits by the crib instead of my husband, he seems to have a harder time of it. When we try to console him, he gets worse. If he doesn't eat enough food during the day, it seems to make it worse.

4. Describe anything that makes the problem better ie. pain is better for cold bathing or at night in bed.
When I nurse him, he is much better and is then able to fall asleep.

5. Go through each symptom or problem he has, doing the same thing, even if the problem does not seem connected to any others.

-- He is 17 months old and is still not saying any words. He has his own 'language', and he repeats the same sounds for everything. He does do sign language. I've noticed that if he has long stretches of sleep at night, the next day he seems much more 'smart'. When we first started sleep-coaching him, I noticed a dramatic increase in his understanding of baby sign language. This was when he started signing. Up until that point he had not understood or caught on to what we were doing with our hands. But after a few nights of good sleep, it just exploded. This was when he was about a year old.

-- He cannot tolerate milk. When he drinks milk, he gets very very hyper almost instantly. He is much more of a handful, throws more fits, doesn't sleep as well and is very whiny. The same thing happens if we give him too much yogurt, cheese, or ghee.

6. When did each problem start? What happened around that same time?
He has never slept through the night. His longest stretch has been 6 hours, maybe 3 times in his life. The 6 hour stretches happened after we started sleep coaching him at 11 months.

He has never tolerated milk. I've tried on several occasions.

7. What is his character like? What kinds of fears or anxieties does he have? What makes her irritable? Flesh out his personality as much as you are able (age can make this difficult)
He is a sweet boy, who is just starting to learn how to throw tantrums when he doesn't get his way. He loves to observe people and loves to be around other people. When I let him walk around at the mall or at a park, he will follow people or stand and stare at a particular person for a very long time. He loves other children and will stare at them the most. He loves being around children and playing with them, it makes him very excited and happy. He's been overstimulated only a few times by activity. But, we aren't very active people to begin with and spend a lot of time at home.

After I nurse him, and at other times if he is feeling snuggly, he likes to rub his head on my face. He pushes his forehead into my face and rubs it all around. He'll slobber on my face ('kisses'), and push my head up so that my chin is poking out so that he can rub his forehead and eyes and face all over my chin. Also when he is sleeping he likes to push his head up against the crib bumper. He also sleeps with his arms up by his head. When he was in utero, he was always very very low into my pelvis, his head was being continually cradled and pushed against. When getting ultrasounds, we could see him down there, and when checking his position later in pregnancy they told me he was at a +1 station. If you know what that means, 0 means he is in the pelvis ready to start labor. +1 means he is even further down, it goes all the way to +4 which means he has been born. So he was at a +1 station, but I wasn't in labor or dilated at all, that's just where he hung out!

He does not like the vacuum cleaner, he will cry if we turn it on and we're not holding him. He whimpers when we bring it out of the closet.

He seems to be very precise, in that he likes to put his fingers on nails that are on the wall, or put them on any knobby thing. He puts his fingers in the center of wheels on his toy cars.

He takes one nap during the day of about 1 1/2 - 3 hours long. He has no trouble with naps.

8. What foods does he crave or hate? What drinks does he crave or hate? Is he sensitive to anything he eats or drinks? How does he feed?
He loves bananas and cheese. He is constantly signing 'banana' because he wants to eat them. He also really enjoys pesto soup, the meatballs in it and the broth. We eat scrambled eggs for breakfast every morning, he loves those if there is parmesan cheese on it. He loves avocados and he eats coconut oil by the spoonful. We open up the coconut oil container and I give him a spoon and I have my own spoon and we just eat it.

9. How does the weather or season or temperature affect him?
When he is cold he signs for 'coat'. He's only done that a few times. He doesn't care if it's freezing outside, he still wants to go. We recently had a thunderstorm/hail storm and we were in the car. I was freaked out, as usual, but Nico was fine, just looking out the window. The hail was SO loud, too!

10. How have all his milestones gone? Does she have any issue with speaking, learning, walking, climbing etc
He has been behind the curve on all his milestones. He learned to walk at 13 months, is not yet speaking, has just recently started climbing. Some days he seems to learn stuff really well, some days he just doesn't catch on to anything. Also sometimes when he learns something, he'll have forgotten the next day.

11. How is he with socializing with others?
He loves socializing with others. He loves to be around people and children.

12. What is his bowel habit like? Any problems? Any odours, strange colours or stool shapes?
He had green slimy poop up until a year old. I gave him 2 doses of Sulphur 30c and he finally had his first solid poop after this. Now he has solid poop. He'll have poop days, where I'm changing his diaper 3 or 4 times in one day because of poop. Maybe every other day or every 2 days he will have a poop day. His poop is usually dark brown, solid, in pebbles. There's usually some lighter splotches, and sometimes there's undigested food in them. He sometimes has softer poop which is medium brown in color.

13. Where does he sweat? Does it have a smell or does it stain a particular colour?
When he wears a hat, his head will sweat. Other than that I haven't noticed any sweating anywhere!

14. History of illnesses in his life?
He has had 5 colds in his life, one flu, and a couple of times with random high fevers with no other symptom but tiredness. He also had Roseola a few months ago.

15. Has he reacted to any vaccines or medical drugs?
He is not vaccinated at this time. Has had no medical drugs. I gave him ibuprofen once and he vomited it back up.

16. Problems with sleep? Position he sleeps in?
He still wakes every 3 or 4 hours at night to nurse. When I put him in his crib he rolls right over to his stomach, and sticks his butt into the air with his legs tucked underneath his bum. His arms are always up and by his head.

17. How is he with animals?
He loves animals! Dogs and cats. He talks to them and pets them.

18. How is he with adults or strangers?
He is fine with both. I answered our door once to a neighbor that Nico had never met before and he reached out to her from my arms, wanting her to hold him.

19. What is the family history of illness and disease?
I grew up with ear infections and antibiotics. There is a lot of heart disease and high blood pressure and cholesterol in this family. Some diabetes, and I have a few cousins with autism and bipolar disorder. A few of my brothers suffer from depression and anxiety, there is some mental stuff on my mom's side (OCD, depression, paranoia).

20. What was the pregnancy like? Any odd symptoms or feelings that disappeared once he was born?
I was on Zofran the entire pregnancy to handle the nausea. I was also on Zoloft the entire pregnancy to handle depression and panic attacks. I had contractions from 22 weeks, was in the hospital a few times to control them. I had really bad panic attacks in late pregnancy. I was on antibiotics for a vaginal infection once during pregnancy, and was on antibiotics during labor for Group B Strep. The nausea stopped the instant Nico was born.

I don't feel like I bonded with him right away. I was a very irritable and depressed mum for a while.

My previous homeopath prescribed him Calc Carb 200c. 4 doses in one day, every 2 weeks for 8 weeks. She also told me I could give him Chamomilla 200c for his teething. The Calc Carb did nothing for helping him sleep through the night. The Chamomilla did help his teething fussiness. He does have a large head, it was always in the 95th percentile, I think that's why she prescribed Calc Carb.