immature digestion or what?

[lesleyella]

My dd is 16 weeks old. she is a smiley little girl but wakes up each night in the early hours crying, pulling her legs up etc. She farts loads but for the rest of the night wont sleep for any length of time ... i can only keep her asleep by patting her (we co sleep). the doctor diagnosed reflux but i am not sure and cant find anyway of getting her to take gaviscon. also she does not take much milk at any feed and wont take a bottle. cant get anywhere with the HV and hate seeing her screaming in pain every night. Any advice very gratefully received.

Sorry to hear about your dd.

we had similar with ds - to be honest I never really worked out what it was but as soon as he was on solids I started giving him probiotics and that seemed to really help.

He used to get constipated very often too.

I hope things improve soon.

Have you tried massaging her tummy? Warm baths and massage with some warm olive oil on the tummy can often be relieving as it can help relieve the wind or any poo thats building up. Also lying on the side or tummy always helps ds2 if he's paricularly windy. Have you tried a dummy? Ds1 has bad reflux and the dummy seemed to help him settle himself and give him some comfort. Keeping them upright for as long as you can after feeding helps a little bit too.

When I was BFing my to refluxy DDs I mixed the Gaviscon up in a little pot with 5mls cooled boiled water and gave it in a syringe before each feed. I found it worked better than giving it afterwards and they fed better/for longer. Once I changed to FFing I just mixed it in with the milk in the bottle.

TBH though that sounds more like wind or colic than reflux which tends to make babies arch their backs rather than curl up. Have you tried Infacol or something similar?

i have triecd infacol but doesn't seem to help. i will try again with the gaviscon, and i will try again with the dummy. i was planning to start her on solids at 17 weeks (despite hv disapproval) as i feel that might help.

last night was a disaster ... screaming started at 11pm and every 1-2 hours after that. she is so sleepy now .. poor thing (me too!).

thank you for advice ... we will keep trying.

Hi lesleyella, this sounds a lot like our lo, but he has colic/excessive wind and not reflux. Things that have helped us are:

• Chiropractor - has worked wonders and I would definitely recommend it. Think cranial osteopaths are also supposed to be good at treating wind/colic problems as well. Try and find one that specialises in babies though
• Infacol before every feed
• Spending plenty of time winding - about 20 minutes after every feed. Sit the baby upright on your knee after a feed and the wind usually comes up quite easily
• Colic massage - our Health Visitor showed us how to do this and it really works
• Eye-Q Omega 3 and 6 fish oil capsules in 2 feeds a day really helps if your LO is constipated - our chiropractor recommended these to us
• Our chiropractor also thinks DS2 may have a hiatus hernia which would explain the excessive wind

Our GP was hopeless but I have found the chiropractor to be amazing

Don't know if any of this helps - but I do know how horrible it is when your LO is up all night with trapped wind.

HTH

thought of something else! - we moved DS23 onto an easy digest formula and the results were almost instant.

bloody hell - DS2