Toddler with trapped wind at night

[Tellytub]

Hi, I am new to mumsnet. I have a ds 18 months, who has suffered terrible tummy pain and trapped wind since birth, being unable to sleep for any length of time at night. He has seen so many docs but we are told that he will most likely grow out of it. We have had trials avoiding all sorts of foods but it seems that all food upsets him. I am constantly searching the internet on information on toddlers with abdominal pain and trapped wind and came across a message on mumsnet from Fimbles who has dd, same age as my ds, with near exact symptoms. Alas the message was posted at the end of 2003. I am desperate to find out if fimbles found a cure for her dd but unable to contact her by CAT messaging. If anyone knows or is in contact with fimbles I would be most grateful if you would let her know of my message. If anyone else has any advice to offer please help. My son has recently been started on Lactulose 10 ml twice daily and Senna 10 ml at night. Initially he passed a lot of wind and slept pain-free for 5 nights but his symptoms recurred and he has been in agony again for 2 weeks. There is also a question of silent reflux and he has been on Ranitidine syrup for quite a while but again we are not really sure if this helps. He also now seems to be in pain, holding his bottom, when passing stools which is maybe once or twice a day.

Hi, also new to mumsnet. I have a 2 year old son, who used to have a bad colic, and until now struggles with wind. Especially at night. During the day, he is able to pass the wind without much problem, as he is very lively and I think movement help. But at night, it is another storry. I noticed he wakes up at the intervals that he is normally fed during the day, so midnight, then 4 am... But now, I have been owrking full time for over a year, and I am really struggling. He stays up from 4 am and can't go back to sleep. And it is all because he is struggling to pass wind. I tried all sorts of things, and nothing helps...

Hi vera, what have you tried? What is your DS's diet like?

Hi new to mumsnet and don't know if it's already been suggested but tea of Ajwain seeds(fennel seeds in English I think). It's an Asian remedy u can get the seeds from any asian grocers. Even for adults eating a spoon of these seeds does wonders. I suffered severe trapped wind after giving birth I thought I was firing at the time. Spoon of Ajwain ten mins later and lots of flatulence I was rite as rain. My DS suffered a horrible episode this evening, thrashed around like he was possessed (normally very calm babe). It's upsetting and worrying to watch. Gave him some Ajwain tea in his beaker n he's fine.
Hope that helps someone

*sorry - firing should have been dying

Hi everyone, I just joined to share my story. My 10 month old has had a horrible time with trapped wind. It started when he was a newborn, he would spit up a lot and wake up every 2 hours at night and then not sleep during the day. Always trying to pass wind and in obvious pain. The doctors told me it was colic, reflux, silent refulx, allergies. I weaned him (I thought it may have been my milk) then started him on solids, tried an elimination diet to rule out allergies and food intolerances as he didn't seem to be able to digest anything. One day his chiropractor gave me the number of a kinesiologist who in one visit diagnosed a blocked pancreas, the ducts into his small intestine from the pancreas were blocked and no digestive enzymes were getting through - nothing was being fully digested and had a belly full of fermenting food. He worked his magic and unblocked the ducts and we now have a baby who sleeps through 5 nights a week. He still has issues with passing wind as he has never learnt how to do it - he is getting better - but is doesn't keep him awake at night anymore. I hope this helps someone out there, don't be scared to try alternate methods.

What to do when your pead insists there's no such thing as silent reflux and rubbishes any of your suggestions? My son doesn't wake up with painful wind as "I've never heard of a baby being woken up with painful wind". I know my son, he just wants to sleep but the pain is unbearable..at this stage - 10 months - I'm exhausted and going back to work soon...he's also constipated but the only dairy he has is in his morning porridge. Should I cut that out? What do I use instead? I'm desperate for more than an hours sleep and more importantly, I desperately hate seeing him in so much pain.

Ok, we're seeing an Oesteopath on Thursday morning, see if that helps.

how did you go with the oesteopath? the kinesiologist I saw was actually a chiropractor who does applied kinesiology. If you have no luck with the oesteopath look up chiropractors in your area who do this and ask for an appointment of just applied kinesiology. It really is amazing stuff.
Hope you are doing ok - I remember how tough it was for me.

my daughter has had problems with wind since being born i have tried everything infacol, dentinox, gripe water, colief, done baby massage and excersises proped her mattress up and even bought dr browns bottles everything seemed to help for a little while, my dr thinks she could also have silent reflux but im not to sure, she started to sleep all night althou was not completely comfortable she used to kick her legs thru the night but she still seemed to be asleep thru it, she has just had what i believe to be her 3month growth spurt now her wind is worse than ever burping and passing gas (mainly passing gas) my dr said she will eventually grow out of it, easy for her to say, i went round the pharmacys in my area and one of them recommended fennel tea i have reasearched it and reviews seem good so tonight is the first night im hoping in a coupledays time or so i can say i have a comfortable happy baby again althou im not holding my breath

It has been a relief to find so many other babies have the same problem as my son.
He is 11 months now and has suffered from terrible wind and tummy pains since birth. We found out he was sensitive to milk protein when he was about 4 months and at the time i was breastfeeding so i wasn't eating anything dairy. It took about 3 weeks for his wind to calm down and although he was still excessively windy, his tummy pains at night completely stopped. He would still wake regularly but giving him a pacifier helped him to go back to sleep without a feed. (he often would feed just to soothe himself but it would make his wind worse)
I found as he got older his wind didnt calm down much but he could sleep better at night if i gave him warm water and winded/played with him for about 2 hrs before he went to bed.
When my son was about 8 months he started to refuse breast so with doctors advise we tried him on milk based formula but he straight away his nighttime pains came straight back and he wouldnt sleep at all.
Hes now on soya based formula and on a dairy free diet and slowly his wind has been getting much better to the extent that until a week ago was sleeping through the night!
Then suddenly he just went from 'almost normal' to the same as he was at 4 moths old.
i came on here looking for reasons why he might suddenly have got all this wind again and have realised it is probably because hes teething at the moment. I'm hoping it will go again when hes stopped teething and am also going to look into cranial osteopathy for him.

The most valuable advice i would give any mother with a baby like mine, check for food intolerances. i think 9 times out of 10 that will be the main cause of the wind and digestive discomfort.

also, i agree with so many of these mums, the health visitors and doctors just dont believe you! and god they always say they'll grow out of it, its so frustrating that they dont acknowledge that its a problem and just say yeh it will be alright one day.

What has worked so far for DD nearly 4yrs

1. Homeopathy - visit society of homeopaths - v important to get a good one
2. Kinesiologist - sorts out what food is best for your child and gives massage points that help
3. Movicol - supposed to be for constipation (which DD hasn't got) but seems to help the wind move through as well! GP said keeping things moving faster should stop food fermenting.
4. Fennel tea helped for a short time and warm honey and lemon drinks.

Just had 10 nights of a fortnight with her sleeping through. Still very restricted to food as identified with the kinesiologist but this is of course worth it if the sleep improves. All the best to everyone as this problem can be one heck of an endurance.

My son is 14mths and still wakes 2-3times a night with wind, I know it is def wind because if I can get him to drink warm water he normally passes it but sometimes he is in so much pain he refuses to drink and he can be awake for 15-20mins throwing himself around and I can hardly hold him and I feel helpless.

He did suffer with colic for the first 3 months and was worse 6-10pm in the evening and normally fine through the night as he got older it started to ease off and I did believe he would grow out of it which he did for a while when I started weaning him on mashed foods. I would say he has been worse since I have started giving him more solid foods fish fingers etc and cows milk I thought it was just a matter that his digestive system had to get used to a change in diet.

I am so relieved to hear that there are other mams with similar problems as when I mention it to people they say he can't be suffering with wind at his age and it must be teething or something else but when he is teething he will let me comfort him and medicine and some cuddles normally does the trick but with the wind I can't do anything for him.

I am now going to start keeping a food diary as he does sleep through every now again so it could be linked to a certain food. He drinks out of a beaker in the day and has no problems with wind but he does have a bottle before bed it is his comfort because he does not have a dummy but I am wondering now if I should replace this with a beaker?? I suppose it will not hurt to try.

If I cannot spot a pattern with food I will look up other suggestions

1. Homeopaths
2. New Erg Tissue Salts for Indigestion Tablets.

Thank for the advice everyone.

My DD is 16 months and I am currently listening to her farting over the baby monitor, every night she wakes crying in pain and writhing about, I breastfeed her and she falls back to sleep. Some nights are worse than others, I am convinced she had colic/reflux when tiny not helped by cerebral irritation due to a brain injury at birth. I cut out dairy and soya at 8 weeks, she got better but even just a little dairy in my diet brings her back out in eczema and tummy pain.

It can take 10-12 days to remove all traces of dairy in the babies body, so if you are doing an elimination diet do ensure you stick to it for a fortnight to see if it has any effects. I also think onion is a cause of issues, we don't give too many windy veg, absolutely no bananas or raisins, ever, but egg is fine as is meat. DD is better than she has been but the one area we still have issues with is nursery who will insist on giving banana. We also notice diarrhoea if she has fruit smoothies, and she is worse when teething. Only time she gets bum rash is when teething, and after a fortnights holiday recently when I know she was 100% dairy/soya free she had terrible wind and I'm sure it is teething. We also find a Nuby sippy cup much better for water during the day than other cups.

DD s 7.5 months and since she has been on solids has been struggling at night with wind.

So much she is screaming in pain. Didn't have a problem before. The leek garlic onion thing might be an issue as my mum ca't eat any of those without being ill.

I also thought that eggs might be an issue. There is no way round it but to do I food diary I think.

Hi

Sorry have nothing useful to add, but just wanted to say thanks. We have twin 11mth old boys and they have lots of the problems you've described about wind. They also wake each other up so even if one's okay you're pretty much stuffed for sleep! They also have silent reflux which I was interested to note several of you mentioned. They have banana most mornings for breakfast so I'm going to try skipping it, although they've been windy since they were tiny (i.e. pre-banana).

Anyway - is nice (?) to know I'm not the only one and also that I'm not crazy for suggesting they have trapped wind when they're not tiny anymore! I'll try your suggestions and let you know if anything amazing happens.
Thanks :)

Left out wholemeal bread- Both bubs up screaming all night - think they finally settlrd (in our bed) 430pm. Maybe they missed their carbs??! :(

Hi, Im totally new to this but have been searching for months now, My Daughter is 11 1/2 months old and from about 6 months old has been waking in the night with tummy pains, she trumps away like mad and wakes almost every hour it started of just once a night but has progressively got worse, I just though she would grow out of it but I can't take seeing her in pain any more. I have tried Gripe Water and Fennel tea, we have an appointment at Doc on Monday so started a food diary on Thursday, we also tried cutting out certain foods but it just seems like everything causes Gas!. was wondering if anyone has any miracle cures. Thanks

Hi, Im totally new to this but have been searching for months now, My Daughter is 11 1/2 months old and from about 6 months old has been waking in the night with tummy pains, she trumps away like mad and wakes almost every hour it started of just once a night but has progressively got worse, I just though she would grow out of it but I can't take seeing her in pain any more. I have tried Gripe Water and Fennel tea, we have an appointment at Doc on Monday so started a food diary on Thursday, we also tried cutting out certain foods but it just seems like everything causes Gas!. was wondering if anyone has any miracle cures. Thanks

Hi all, Like you all, when I first read all of these posts, I started to cry. Having been to doctors, paeditricians, dieticians, cranio osteopaths, exclusion diets - nothing has worked completely. Before I read all of these, my partner thought it was me... so thank you. We both realised our daughter's pain is not in our heads or 'bad parenting habits'. Our daughter is 18 months, had 'colic' between 2 weeks and 3 months old, then constipation / trapped wind problems since. We have used Lactulose and then recently found it causes wind (so why did the doctors prescribe it???). We are currently using Movacol (sp?) and it is at least better than the Lactulose. I am now up every 2 hours (was every hour) massaging her tummy. She is still breastfeeding - I allow her twice a night as long as it is before 2 AM. She loves to feed as it helps the wind. Her problem is not the burping but lower intestinal. I cannot massage her quick enough the gases produce so quickly sometimes.

We recently took away her dummy and I think that is helping. My question to all: Did your little ones have dummies? I see that the question of sucking is asked above... are there any more thoughts?

Hi, like everyone above my 7 month old has had constipation and wind problems. To start with he can only drink aptamil comfort with coiled drops without projectile vomiting, then we started to wean him and he came out in a rash, after 7 months of sleepiness watching my baby scream in pain I,d had enough (endless gp visits and health visitors not helping) I stormed into my gps room and said refer my baby to see a peaditrician or I,m making a serious complaint, an emergency referral was put in and a week later we were seeing the specialist at our local hospital, he felt his tummy and sent him straight for an x ray, he then told us then he had been so constipated that the days that he was having softer poo was the overflow from the bowel and that the bowel had been full of hard poo that it had stretched the bowel to an abnormal size. The pain each night would have been the bowel constantly trying to contract back down to size but would be unable to due to the bowel being constantly full.
This really made sense, so our first part of treatment was high dose of laxative for 5 days to completely empty the bowel, then a medication to contract the bowel back down to a normal size thus eliminating the bowel contractions. So far is working well. The consultant also sent him for 9 allergy tests which showed mild allergies for tomatoes, soya and wheat. We have another appointment with him to see how it's going and next stage of plan to get my baby's bowel working properly again. It all makes sense, my poor baby had wind troubles as he had trapped wind due to all the poo! Just glad someone is finally listening and not looking at me as if my baby is just naughty at night

Hi

Its so good to hear your not the only parrent out their suffering with no answers to your childrens problems.... i would love to hear from a few of the people above if you have 5 mins to answer me at my wits end with GPS and Hospitals although I cant thank them enough for what they have done already!!!!!

My son is 18 months old, 2 days after he was born I took him back to the Maternity ward as he was sleeping none stop and bringing up bile. After they done an Xray he was rushed to Yorkhill it showed he had a very large floppy Bladder and was holding over 500ml of urine, they have now managed this over the years and i catherise him and he wears a catheter bag at night as a safety precaution. He now pees every now and then.... slow progress but moving in the right direction.... When he was in hospital about 1 week old i kept expressing my concerns he hadent pooed, but they said he had "Man Poo" and found it hard, so for the next week they gave him supositries and he went a bit!!! after getting him home 6 weeks on, my concerns grew and his stomach starting extending about 10-12inches but whenever I went into hospital it never seemed that big, until once He became very unwell and dehydrated because of it and they xrayed him and ended up doing a manual evacuation (put him to sleep and use their fingers aparently its the only way to proper clear your bowel) and kept in for couple of weeks getting retual washouts every night, and put on 2 sachets of movical daily, I went home and continued both for 6 months... thenwe stopped them 10 months ago now but the problem seems to be at its worse, he has had 8 xrays within the past 6 weeks with it, but still no diagnoise I was advised to go back to washouts??? but he poos and the xrays show its gas so cant undertand why? When I question they say maybe its time for a Stoma Bag but I cant see that helping either, I fought against a catheter bag for this urine problems and against the odds has been successful. Mothers instints do account for something! They do admit my ds has problems they havent came across before but i just feel he cant possibly be the only one!!

Fortuantely for me the consultants have advised they believe my son has a very high pain threashold because he was born with medical problems and he only has little crys at night but during the day is active again unless his stomach is extremely big, this doesnt help though as your arent taken serious by the GP and constantly get sent away until he gets worst and then your back in hospital for days......

My questions - How do they diagnoise food tolerance? I only mind my ds getting Sweat tests done?

has anyone in particular been told its gas causing the problem after an xray rather than constipation?

My ds eats for a day then cant seem to fit anything else in for 3/4 days after and this is an ongoing pattern, is this similar to anyone??

Thanks Again xxx

My daughter has not had a any x-rays but 1 doctor out of 9 said he felt an impation and prescribed Movicol. But no extra poo came out.

I am convinced it is gas only as from 4 years of rubbing I can feel how the hard pockets break into small bubbles and pass out as a smell.
We have had no joy from conventional medicine. I take comfort from the fact that apart from the huge amount of wind my daughter has developed mentally and grown very well - although this does mean the medical practitioners then say there is no real need to investigate. But meanwhile we have to both deal with constant disturbed sleep and really limited food which rules our lives.
In my dd's case I don't think there is a quick fix - more a gradual adjustment. Leaky gut seems to fit her symptoms to me but again no easy answer.
Continued best wishes to everyone.

In answer to zeneria - no my dd did not have a dummy. just breast fed as a baby - but still had problems then.

Hi! Never been on a forum before! Nice to know you're not the only one in the world with these problems and everyone else not believing you!

My 4 yr old didn't sleep well til about 3 yrs due to trapped wind, when after cranial osteopathy, lots of work with a homeopath and absolutely no help from doctors (one told me it was nothing to do with food, wind, stomach or digestion and it was separation anxiety and also that I should make her room nice! As if it wasn't already!!) a new homeopath recommended we try Biocare Junior Digestaid. This product transformed our lives overnight! Half a capsule mixed in with her main meal. I should mention she was already on a scrict and limited diet. We find foods that affect her are wheat/gluten, milk of any sort incl. any cheese, eggs, bananas, peaches, apples, onions and potates to name some but not exhaustive as she seems to be so sensitive to so many foods. I want to work more now with her as feeding her is a bit of a nightmare and I would love her to have a more varied diet. Watch this space! However thankfully we just got her largely sorted before I had my twin boys. I could not believe it when my nightmare began all over again!!

I barely sleep most nights with a combination of not being able to get one or both settled due to the wind, which rattles out of them or not as the case may be and/or being woken by screaming in pain throughout the night. I have them off wheat/gluten and cows milk and am certain one is intolerant to cows milk protein as the screaming was much worse when I was drinking it. They are 10 mths now and breastfeed and weaned. I have tried the afore mentioned digestaid, but found it made them sick, (I guess they were too little) although am in mind to try again very soon. This time saw a fantastic doctor (as well as afore mentioned homeopath, osteopath) and was referred to a pediatrician. One believed to have reflux. Infant Gaviscon has helped. Also tried Omeprazole, but wasn't happy and took him off it. Awaiting discussion with GP and referral for other twin and girl to dietician.....

To anyone in a similar position, you have my simpathies. It is hell, night after night of being up most or all of the night!

If anyone can tell me anything that you think could help, I would appreciate it!