Having concerns about my 7 month old. Advice needed please!

[Guest guest]

This will probably be a bit long but if you could bear with me, I could really

use some advice!

A little background: My 5 year old DS is on the mild end of the autism

spectrum. My 3 year old DD has Down syndrome. I also have a 7.5 month old DS.

We have not vaccinated the baby at all and do not plan to.

Everything was going great up until about 3 months old. I am breastfeeding and

he was doing great. No skin issues, no food issues, development on track in all

areas. Sleeping well.

Then when he was 3 months old, I got appendicitis. I needed an emergency

appendectomy and was on a lot of pain killers in the hospital as well as

anesthesia for the surgery and IV antibiotics during the surgery. During this

time, I was told by the anesthesiologist that I needed to " pump and dump " the

milk for 24 hours from the surgery. I read some info on some breastfeeding

sites that said that I didn't even need to " pump and dump " for that long but I

wanted to be conservative and do what they said. I had some frozen breast milk

which was fed to DS and then when we ran out, he got two bottles of

formula...his 1st ever formula.

After the surgery, he started waking up at night more often. At first we blamed

it on low milk supply due to the surgery. But then my supply was back up and he

was still waking. We blamed it on teething and on growth spurts but the wakings

continued to become more frequent.

By the end of December (around 5.5 months), he was literally waking up every

30-90 minutes at night and screaming hysterically. He would arch his back like

he was in pain. I took him to the doctor twice to have him checked out.

Everything checked out fine...ear were fine. No signs of what could be causing

it. Doctor wanted us to try Zantac in case it was silent reflux. He showed no

signs of reflux at all but we tried it just in case. It made no difference.

Then we thought maybe the antibiotics from surgery messed with his belly or

maybe the formula triggered a food allergy/intolerance (even though he wasn't

showing classic symptoms). So I eliminated dairy from my diet and we started

giving him a probiotic every day. The screaming and arching subsided.

He now still gets up 2-3 times a night which is still more than before but I

guess within the range of " normal " for a breastfed baby. I feel like he is no

longer in pain when he wakes which is good.

The problem though is that I feel like he is " changed " not that the whole ordeal

is passed. He is now 7.5 months old and is not sitting up unassisted. He will

roll to get places but isn't crawling or pulling up (still a little early for

that). The biggest concern though is that he doesn't seem as talkative as he

was. He used to babble and would go back and forth with us if we talked to him.

Now he seems to be a very serious baby. If you try to get him to laugh, it

takes a lot of effort. He will just stare at you with a serious face. He

doesn't really babble with consonant sounds much any more.

Physically we don't notice any concerning symptoms. Skin is fine. Bowels are

normal.

We are at a loss as to what to do now and we are very concerned.

We have continued with the probiotic and I am still dairy free. I also take the

following supplements myself (so he gets benefit through breast milk): multi,

Metagenics Vessel Care, D3, mineral supplement, probiotic.

What would you do at this point? I have considered eliminating gluten as well

but I honestly don't feel like I can do it. I am having a hard enough time

maintaining my weight while breastfeeding as is and am concerned that if I

restrict my diet further, it will be bad for my health and ultimately for the

baby as well.

Sorry this is so long. Please give some advice if you can!