Trouble getting 5 month old to sleep

[lovelylula]

My little girl is 5 months, she gets sleepy and cranky from around 6.30pm so we have a routine where we bath her, then I get her ready for bed, give her a feed (breast fed) and then she drops off to sleep from around 7.30pm......she sleeps for about 1 hour only to wake up screaming as though she is in pain and then will not settle despite trying to re feed and console her!! is it okay to leave her to cry? MY husband thinks we may have made things worse by constantly going to console her?? Please help!! Advice needed xx

[ches]

Nope, she's too young to be left to cry. There's just so much going on right now and a breastfed baby very often cluster feeds in the evening (i.e. lots of feeds, closely spaced). She could very well be in pain from gas, especially if she has fed to sleep and not been burped/upright to allow her to get her wind up herself. You can get drops with simethicone in and give them to her before her feed. Simethicone is not absorbed by the body, rather it's a surfactant which causes gas to collect into big bubbles to come out easily one end or the other. It's safe enough to give to newborns, even at every feed.