Phenobarbital for Infants

Our daughter was admitted to the hospital with bacterial meningitis on July 4, 2015.  She was two and a half weeks old then.  She is now almost 3 months.  In addition to the mengitis she had some seizures in the ER the night she was admitted and the next day.  We have not witnessed anymore seizures since then but she has been on phenobarbital since July 4th.  Since being on this medication she sleeps a lot.  She recieves two doses a day, one in the morning and one at night.  She has periods were she seems more awake and alert like normal babies and can hold her head up well and support herself.  But then she has other periods when even when she is awake she seems like she is in a medicatino fog.  It seems more difficult for her to pick her hold her head up for any length of time.  She also suffered some brain damage as a result of the illness, so at this point we do not know what exactly could be from the damage and what may be medication related.  She has a hard time focusing on us and objects and is not able to track objects yet.  She is usually very alert in the morning and then we give her the morning dose and it knocks her out for 6 to 8 hours with her only waking up for a little while here and there.  Then at night she seem be get very fussy and will be up most of the night crying on and off.  I have read that this medication can cause all kind if issues from drousiness to vision problems.  I would just like to know if anyone else has experienced anything similar to this with a child on this medication.  And if you have an recommendations of a medication that may have worked better for your child.  We are hoping to try to ween her off of it soon to see how she does.  But at the very least I want to see if her neurologist would consider changing medicaitons.