New baby crying in sleep

[PotatosMum]

I have a 12 day old. She is wonderful but seems to have trouble with wind. She often seems to have painful gas. I've got her infacol which I started using today and I've been cuddling her a lot so that she's upright in an effort to help her.
This afternoon I haven't been able to put her down as every few minutes she will start arching her back and crying in her sleep. She's not waking up, and settling again after a few seconds but it's really upsetting to see her so distressed.

Any ideas, does this sound like wind? Health visitor was unbothered but I'm a new mum and a bit worried.

[TheHubblesWindscreenWipers]

It's horrid to see them in so much discomfort isn't it?
Infacol works ok, but what we found really helped much more was this:

Lie baby down on their back.
Gently lift the legs and gently but firmly push them into the tummy (be very gentle.)
Holding the ankles together lift the legs and move them clockwise in a circle three or four times - at the top of the circle the knees should just gently press the tummy.
Then make gentle bicycling movements with the legs a few times.
Repeat. You can find videos of how to do it on you tube.
We found that this tended to produce a good fart within a few minutes. We also used the drops that have good bacteria in - hard to say if they work but they certainly don't hurt.

You could also try getting into a nice warm bath with her and gently rubbing her tummy/moving her legs.

At this age the gut is developing and the bacteria within the gut are growing - it's very, very common to have wind and wind pain for several weeks. The gut is firing up and developing - it can be troublesome for them but there's unlikely to be anything 'wrong.'

Is she breast or bottle fed? Bottle babies can swallow more air, so worth getting some of the anti colic bottles (MAM or dr. Brown.)

[julfin]

Hubbles - please can you post the links for the YouTube videos that show how you do this? I've been bicycling the legs too, but differently from how you described, and it takes much longer than a few minutes.
Thanks!

[PotatosMum]

Thanks for the advice.

I spoke to another HV and she told me I was using the wrong formula and I should be on SMA first infant. Instead of my baby having painful trapped wind occasionally it's now all the time and I'm completely at my wits end

I'm thinking of changing formula again and lots of people seem to say aptimal is the way to go. Any suggestions?

[hopinghopefullyagain]

My baby is a week old. We are using aptamil and Dr brown anti colic bottles and no major problems with wind yet. But we are under no illusions - this is very likely the calm before the storm

[PotatosMum]

Arya was fine for her first week then came mega painful poos, turned out this was caused by hungry baby milk. We changed to first infant sma and now she's struggling so much with wind/colic that she struggles to sleep lying down

Looking online it now seems tummy trouble on sma is quite common which leads me to wonder why the heck they use it in my local hospital
I've decided to change brand today and hope for the best as I hate seeing her upset

[tissuesosoft]

I'm sorry you're going through this (and your little one!), it's so hard to see them in pain and not be able to help. My DD (7 months now) had extremely bad reflux and we ended up taking her to A&E because it was so bad she was going blue from screaming in pain. We switched her bottles to Dr Brown (they are worth the money but the only thing you can't do is shake the bottles to mix the formula so we make it in her previous tommee tippee bottles then transfer it) and got her a prescription for Infant Gaviscon (which she still has to be on). Within a few days she was a completely different baby, no problems with gas or reflux except when trying to wean her off the gaviscon.