Background: My one year old has never slept well. I guess I mean that he has always been a really sensitive sleeper. Hard time going to sleep, after me nursing and rocking and singing and dancing and nursing and nursing , you get it. Plus, he always has woke up frequently. We co-sleep, we nurse on demand, we are together all day, and he has been eating table food since about 8 months. He eats and likes pretty much everything. I have noticed that for the last few months, this is his sleeping trend pretty consistently: Bed at 9 or 10 ish. He wakes up at one hour in and nurses back fairly easy. Then, he usually sleeps for his longest stretch, which is somewhere about 2 -3 hours. After that, he usually makes straining noises and cries lightly (like whines and whimpers) in his sleep every 20-40 minutes for about 5 minutes long before sitting up and coming over to me to nurse back to sleep, only to repeat over and over again until he finally farts many many times and then he sleeps another stretch of about 2 hours. I sometimes can speed up the process by picking him up and holding him under the knees, in the "potty" position and bouncing him up and down to help him pass the gas. Its an intervention at best and I am looking for a prevention or suggestion. I tried eliminating yogurt and nothing changed (except that now he doesn't want yogurt anymore after not having it for a week). We don't do cow's milk yet, but he loves cheese. All kinds. I am thinking maybe thats it, does anyone have a thought on that? He also has been on Iron since 10 months, but I've never noticed a constipation issue. He eats more of proteins and fruits than anything. I am looking for as much advice or thoughts from a variety of people because I am losing my mind. I usually only get 3-4 hours of sleep and its interrupted...

i'd get rid of all milk, even trace amounts in anything. milk is the most common, but we aware, ANY food can cause a reaction. he'll adjust to no cheese and hopefully very quickly. we are on an extremely limited diet b/c of allergies and the kids are awesome!

Your son sound just like our dd!! She never slept well from the moment she was born. It would take me 40 minutes to get her alseep (by bf-ing, walking, rocking, humming), she would sleep for 45 minutes and then we would start over. Her first year was really quite a blur. Thankfully my dh and I had decided that I would stay home with her before she was born cause otherwise I don't know how I would have functioned!!
Her sleep pattern went on like this for 18 months. We talked to two different peds and an allergist. All offered us no help and little hope. We were constantly asking ourselves questions "Is she too hot? too cold? Is it too dark in the room? too bright? is cosleeping bothering her? is it the cats?" etc....
Luckily for us, when she started solid food she also developed a rash on her face and around her anus. Slowly we were able to figure out that the nights when she slept the worst were followed by a worse rash.
We eventually tried eliminating dairy. We saw some improvements but since the rash persisted and the sleep was still a problem we figured we were wrong and moved onto trying to eliminate another food. This went on for a long time before we decided to try dairy again. This time (when she was 18 months) we eliminated dairy in all forms (milk, yogart, cheese, casein, whey, sodium caseinate, non-fat milk solids, milk powder, etc.) We had to become anal food label readers. No joke, within 4 days she was sleeping 7 hours in a row after never having slept more than 45minutes. It was amazing. Since this time was have figured out that she is also sensitive to tomatoes, eggs, apples, and chocolate. Our ds (#2) has the same sensitivities plus wheat and a true allergy to dairy. He, more so than his sister, has mood swings when exposed to the offending foods. He was soooo colicy his first 6 months.
The process of figuring this all out (and we havent' figured it all out yet) has been straining on our parenting, our finances, our spirits, and our marriage. It can be very depressing and frustrating. What has helped us is 1) we went to a naturopathic dr that did electroaccupuncture food sensitivity testing on the kids (don't know how it worked but the results were dead on) and 2) was reading the book "Is this your child?' by Dr. Doris Rapp. This book talks about signs and symptoms of food and environmental allergies (both physical and behavioral) and ways of detecting them. Most of all it made us feel that we weren't crazy. There was a reason our children were reacting the way they were.
I hope some of this helps. Let me know how it goes.

If you decide to eliminate dairy make sure you eliminate all dairy, not just cut back. Read food labels because dairy can be found in all kinds of processed foods. Eliminate it for at least two weeks, maybe even a month and then reintorduce it to see what the reaction is.
I did this with dd and it was clear, she can't tolerate it (I reatced as well upon reintorduction and it was bad). I had previously just cut back and didn't notice the change until I completely eliminated it. She sleeps a lot better off dairy and generally seems a less fussy girl. Since eliminating dairy, I've also found that she can't tolerate soy and neither can I.
Good luck!

things improved after cutting back on cheese.