Gassy baby - in agony farting

[Cherry85]

Title says it all really. 8 week old has been up half the night trying to fart and screaming in agony when he does. A friend said this can be normal at his age but what can I do to help?

Also - when he is in that much pain can I give him calpol to help him? He is in so much pain and bawling his eyes out

This stage will pass, apparently its a phase where they instinctively clench their bottoms in response to gas instead of letting go and getting really cross.

Have you tried a warm bath?

Awww poor little thing. We had a very gassy baby and it's very stressful. The key for us was to stop the gas in the first place. So we used anti-colic bottles (mam), infacol and insane amounts of burping. We would burp every ounce or so (or few mins if breast feeding) then at the end too. I wouldn't bother with calpol as it won't fix the pain, just bicycle his legs to help him the farts out and hopefully that will help him in the short term. Hope he feels better soon!

Oh god, I remember these days. It was horrible and you have my sympathies.

Have you tried:

• really thorough winding. I used to sit him up and move him round in little circles with his chin resting in my hand - used get some big ones out.

• infacol. I was never convinced by this, but lots of people say it makes a big difference.

• I used to help him fart by having him lying down on my legs, then doing gentle bicycle legs and gentle leg crunches up to his tummy.

One day he will happily fart like a trooper by himself though, I promise. Also, look at the cause of the gassiness - if you're bottle feeding then maybe switch bottle type or formula? For breastfeeding, I used to have to sometimes feed lying down because otherwise my milk came out to forcefully which caused him to swallow air I think. It did all get better sometime around the 12 week mark.

Infacol and keep him upright after feeding him until his wind is up. Much harder for them to get the wind out when lying on their backs.

Have a look at baby massage techniques. You can use olive or any cooking oil. Try the one in the pic and also bicycling his legs.

Oooooh this could be related to burping then? I had thought cos it was gas down below that Nd infacol wouldnt make a difference!

Thanks guys!

Any luck OP?

DD had the worst farts. Turned out to be a dairy allergy, I stopped eating dairy and the farts went away (in addition to other things)

There's a brilliant baby massage technique specifically for this. Line up your fingers along the left hand side of his stomach - pinky at the top of the stomach near the rib cage, down to index finger near the bottom of his stomach, near his hip bones. Then gently 'walk' your fingers down his tummy, starting with little finger, through to index finger. Do that gently about 2-3times then move about 1 cm in and do it again. Keep doing this, working your way gradually form left to right hand side of his stomach. At some point you will actually find the fart bubble. It will feel like a hard lump. When you do, gently walk your fingers over it, from the top of the bubble to the base, gently pushing it down and out of him. It will either break up into smaller, less painful bubbles or it will come out. DS used to get this look of happy surprise when I found it and took away the pain. Then he'd start giggling. So cute.

@ellanwood that sounds good! Thanks!

Do you do that when the pain is there or after a bottle

I used to do it at the first sign of pain. After a bottle, I used to burp him sitting up on my knee, not over shoulder, as that seemed to work better, and also sometimes lying tummy down over my knees and rubbing his back gently a sthat too was soothing.

I forgot to say, you have to do this massage from left to right because that's the way the colon is folded, so you are pushing the wind down and out if you massage in this direction. Other way would push the wind back inside, causing pain or sickness.

Great thank you!

My DS was exactly like this, it was awful to see him in pain. We tried literally every trick in the book to help. He turned out to have an cows milk allergy which we only confirmed on weaning (ebf and was reacting through me).

Also keeping them upright for 30 mins after a feed and always burping them. Hope you're both alright.