I have suspected that my daughter, Abbie, who is now almost 9 months old is also intolerant to gluten. I was pregnant with her when I discovered that Barrett couldn't eat it. I was worried about her getting exposed to gluten too early as well so I went gluten-free for the last month of my pregnancy and the first months or so after she was born, since I was nursing her. She was a perfect baby: healthy, happy, easy to please. She started sleeping through the night when she was 9 or 10 weeks old and I could just lay her in bed and she'd fall asleep without crying. I slowly started eating gluten again (I'm a sucker for chocolate chip cookies and rolls!).
When she was about 4 1/2 months old she started waking up twice a night, then three times, then every two hours, then every hour! I waited for growth spurts to end, teeth to come in, milestones to be learned, and still her sleeping did not improve. She got to be really gassy as well and became very famous for passing gas all the time. I really didn't want to go gluten-free again, but when my gene test from Enterolab showed that I had two gluten-sensitive alleles I knew that my kids had a three in four chance of having gluten intolerance--and it would probably benefit me as well.
I really didn't want to go gluten-free again but I'll do anything for my kids so I've been gluten-free for about a week again (and it really isn't so bad). She is still sleeping horribly but I suspect it will take some healing time and body-adjustment time before that improves. But she hasn't been gassy at all. A good sign that she is improving, but a bad sign since I was hoping she wasn't gluten-intolerant.
Even more, I myself am feeling much better. After Barrett's Enterolab results came back I began to wonder if I was gluten-intolerant myself and started paying attention to what happened after I ate it. I noticed very slight, uncomfortable intestinal cramps. Nothing bad. Nothing I would even complain about to anyone. I could have had them my whole life and just passed it off as a natural digestion process because it wasn't very painful. And what do you know, since I've been gluten free I haven't had that at all! I want to do stool samples through Enterolab for my whole family but I can't afford to do it right now. I refuse to have a biopsy done for any of us because I think it is the most useless and ridiculous diagnostic process I have ever heard of.
I think I'll end up staying gluten-free at least as long as my baby is nursing, and possibly forever. I just hope I don't have any problems with casein because I am addicted to milk shakes and cheese!
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