5 mo DD squirms, grunts and moans all night with trapped wind!

[marushka82]

Hi everyone, I hope someone here can help or suggest something to try before I go insane :)
My DD is almost 5 months and is EBF. I co-sleep and so far she hasn't been sleeping through the night, but she'd do a 4 hour stretch from about 10:30-11pm and then would feed and go back to sleep in literally minutes, then wake up after 3 hours, feed, then wake up after two hours or so. Not ideal, but since she would feed quickly we'd both be back to sleep in minutes and wake up around 7.30 or 8 am.
For the last few nights her sleep has become more and more erratic and she sleeps for max 2 hours at a time... From about 1-2am she's squirming, grunting and thrashing around, pulling her legs up and occasionally farts, then sleeps a bit, then the cycle repeats. A lot of the time she doesn't even want to eat, but it's obvious to me that she is in pain or something is bothering her. I am EXHAUSTED and don't think I can deal with this much longer. I'm also worried that she's not getting enough sleep and won't develop properly! She has three naps a day, each one is about 40mins-1hr, she just won't sleep for longer.
I already gave up eating dairy and soy, as I think she's sensitive to them. The only new thing I ate in the last few days was orange juice - the evening and night after was seriously the worst. I haven't touched citrus since then but last night was no different (ok, maybe slight improvement in that DD was squirming in her sleep and not crying out in pain like the night before).
Should I try giving her gripe water before bed? I'll try anything, I just want a few hours of uninterrupted sleep!

Gripe water/fennel tea/Infacol-all babies are different, one of those is right for her.
Google "Tiger in the Tree".
Bicycle her legs to relieve wind.
Draw a reversed "C" shape on her abdomen with a fairly firm touch, starting at topright as you face her.

Hi Marushka. I think I remember you from the waiting to go into labour threads this summer as I have a 5 month old also!

Just wanted to say that mine is very similar except that he has never done a 4 hour stretch and still wakes up every 1-2 hours overnight. I have tried dairy free, infacol, fennel tea, TITT, all with no improvement. I am shouty and impatient with my other 2 through exhaustion.

We are now a week in to giving some baby rice and I will report back .

It's awful, isn't it? Really feel for you. You are not alone ,

Hi Zuluwarrior, I think I remember you from that thread too!
It's pretty awful and I have no idea what triggered it.. DD was always perfectly happy to nurse to sleep and if she woke up during the night it was due to hunger... It's now been an hour and a half since I started feeding her and trying to get her to sleep and still no luck! I gave her gripe water tonight, hope it helps a bit... What really bugs me is the fact that it started so suddenly...
How are you holding up?

Did the gripe water make any difference?

Thanks for asking - we're plodding on but I'm finding the sleep deprivation really hard. I'm going to attempt to get him to go down in his cot tonight but suspect i'll just end up crying as usual.

I have been co-sleeping for survival and I've nothing against it in principal but it's not really me, especially now he's over 5 months and I think I'm starting to disturb him.

Happy days! At least he is happy and cute during the day. Could be a lot worse.

I think it helped initially, I gave it to her after the evening feed and she slept for about 2.5 hours. The rest of the night was pretty bad: lots of squirming and falling asleep for 30 mins, then waking up again.
Last night was much better, I gave DD Calpol because she has a bit of a cold, I didn't manage to give any gripe water because she was screaming when I tried. She slept for a 3 hr stretch, then did 2 hours and another 2 hours and it wasn't too hard to resettle her.
Let's see what tonight brings.
She's still crap at taking naps during the day, the longest one is around lunchtime in a pushchair but I have to walk non stop otherwise she wakes up. Other naps are 40 minutes at best...
I'm also co-sleeping, tried putting her in her cot but she screams so I just gave up and we're much happier that way :D

Here, here... I have an indentical babe!
She is 4 months.
She has never done more than 2 hours in her own bed.
She has rarely done 3 hour stretches co-sleep which I do purely bc I cannot keep my eyes open!!
She has been a very farty baby... At 6weeks she was doing 2 wake ups and going to sleep straight after, since then we've reached rock bottom where I've literally felt like I've had less than 2 hours broken sleep a night ??

She recently got diagnosed with tt and had it snipped... I think the wind is less so less farting all night but she is now vv clingy and we've lost the early eve 2 hour block btwn 7-9 she would sometimes do...

I swear she is some kind of super baby that needs no sleep.. I wake from the five minutes we do manage all puffy eyed and she's miss dazzling baby...

I know people talk of the 4 month sleep regression but we never had the 2/3 month improvement!!!

In short, I empathize ??

Hi I hope I can help. My DS is 7 months & FF fed so it might be different for him but he had had colic & a silent reflux ( which from what you describe sounds very similar to his symptoms. From 3 mths he has never done more than a 2 hr sleep & it almost wrecked us both. After weeks of trying everything I went to the doctor & he prescribed omprozyl (that's not how it's spelt but said)it's a heartburn/reflux/wind tablet & since then he sleeps in 4 hr blocks at night from 8-8 with a feed every 4 hrs.

If alleles fails I hope this helps as it's so hard without sleep & seeing your baby in pain.

Thanks hippy - shall look into this after yet another night of farting and only 3 hours sleep ??.

Just out of interest, did you try ranitidine before that?

We tried lots of things but not that. Here's the correct spelling omeprazole, it's a gastro-resistant tablet delivered in 10mg which I have to disolve on a spoon. It has helped him so much & it's great having my happy baby back. :)

Thanks for replying girls! Last night here was ok-ish, DD did 3hrd, then feed, then almost 2.5 hours, then around 6 am started squirming... We tried feeding, bicycling the legs and finally tiger on the tree which woke her up... I changed her and managed to get her to nap for another hour. The morning nap was a measly 30 mins...
Flopsybunny, I really feel for you too!
Hippy, what are the signs of silent reflux? I sometimes see DD sort of gag, as if some of the food was coming back... Hmmm not sure how to describe it really!

Every thing you've mentioned really. I couldn't figure out what was wrong it took lots of appointments & trying various things until we found what it was. Mostly my DS did what I call a shuffle at night after his feeds. Kind of moving his head from side to side really quickly & then doing the same with his body & kicking his feet. it's hard to tell with a silent reflux as they don't be sick with it.

Try feeding as upright as possible & tilting the mattress of the cot with a pillow underneath it. Treat it as colic for a few nights and see if that helps at all.

Hope you all get a decent nights sleep soon.

Right, not sure what happened but last night my DD did a 5.5 hr stretch! And she napped for almost 2 hours in the morning! She's exactly 5 months today so maybe that's her little gift to us? ;) interested to see what happens tonight, she's asleep already (that barely ever happens!)

Hippy, wow, haven't thought about that but she does that a lot! As I co sleep I cannot really raise her, unless I put something under the duvet we sleep on top of... Hmmm. I'm going to read a bit about it now, thanks for the info!

The only thing I find confusing is that most sources out there state that poor weight gain is one of the symptoms of silent reflux and DD has been gaining weight very well, started on 50th centile and she's now on 75th. I guess I'll have a chat to the gp about it anyway!

Wow marushka!! Hope our little girl follows the lead...barely slept last night again!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Last night was 3 hrs, 2hrs, 2hrs and 1hr so not bad. A lot of squirming in the morning, I think I'm going to take DD to GP in the new year to check for silent reflux. I hope she doesn't get Gaviscon for babies as I heard that makes them constipated!
I also suspect that DD has CMPI so I'm going to watch my diet closely for anything with dairy (I miss cheese already!).
Good news is DD had a 2hr nap this morning - some miracle!
Wishing you all a happy New Year with lots of sleep! :D

Well dd's new year pressie to us was a 3 hour stretch!! This was in her car seat though at a friends - know they are not supposed to be in them that long but we kept thinking she would wake and when she didn't, we didn't want to wake her!!

Thinking if she was sitting upright that would support the reflux theory...

Marushka - tried gaviscon, didn't notice improvement plus it was so irritatingly fiddly to administer! We gave her just one dose of ranitidine last night early evening just before the three hour prize... Might try again tonight x

Flopsybunny, that's great news! My DD just went back to max 3 hour stretches :(
I read a few threads here on MN about silent reflux and the signs I'm noticing that suggest it might be it are:

• random screaming during feeds and turning away from breast
• coughing
• frequent waking at night
• squirming and head turning and moaning at night

On another thread I found that frequent hiccups and feeding a lot might also be signs. DD eats very frequently and I'm thinking she might want to neutralise the acid that way?

I'm a bit sceptical about trying to convince the GP that it might be silent reflux because from what I read GPs very often dismiss mother's concerns and say that 'all babies cry' or 'all babies wake up frequently'.
DD doesn't really cry a lot, just every now and then during feeds she starts screaming randomly...

Aaargh, last two nights were a nightmare - DD was asleep for 2.5 hours and then up/squirming/eating every hour. I KNOW BF babies wake up more often as BM is digested much more quickly than formula, but it's almost like DD is eating more frequently at night than she is during the day!

Ditto here marushka!!
Dd has all those things and ALWAYS has hiccups.
We've now even lost the 2 hours at the start of the night... After several attempts by both me and dh to put her down, we gave up... She slept on dh til 2am, then I went in spare bedroom for the rest of night to give him a break.
When will beano sleep?!! Worried about going back to work already! X

I often cannot get dd to feed properly btwn 10am and 5pm. Then she will feed 5 times at night and be up inbetween with wind... Argh!

Oh I feel for you! I find that a lot of things distract DD during day feeds so I try to go into the bedroom and feed her there - it's a bit more quiet and I try and make sure she is facing a blank wall :)
In the evening, I pretty much take DD to bed around 8.30-9pm and usually feed her on and off until 10-11pm when she usually falls asleep (and even then I sometimes has to use a dummy otherwise she would happily sleep with my boob in her mouth! ;)
I wrote a similar post on another forum (La Leche League) and they said it could be teething (especially with DD scratching her ears/side of her head) or ear infection - I'm going to take her to see a GP on Monday just to make sure it's not an ear infection (doubt it as DD is pretty happy and no fever!)
I gave her a bit of calpol tonight and she's been asleep for 30 mins, let's see how long this lasts!
Keeping fingers crossed you have an easier night!

Ditto here... They are mirror image babies!!! First night in ages my dh and I are having a nice adult conversation at this time! Dd has to have dummy. It has been a godsend for us. Dd not distracted during feeds but screaming as if in pain every few seconds...
So far tt clip helped latch but not with that.

Also had gp check for ear infection yesterday but all good.
Only other thing is that dd can be happy as Larry on her mat and then we touch hey neck/shoulders in trying to get a vest on but she suddenly screams in pain.
We have tried co but no change.
Fast, back to back birth so wondering if she may be in pain when laying down for a sleep?

Argh, another night with next to no sleep! I'm going to the GP this morning, hopefully they can help (or at least confirm re: ear infection).
DD was squirming all night in her sleep and crying out/moaning. If she was just waking hungry I'd not be worried, but she eats and then continues to cry/pull legs up/scratch her ears/side of her face.
It also takes ages sometimes to get her off to sleep - yesterday I was feeding her on and off (as she kept dozing off) from 8pm to 11pm when she finally fell asleep - only to wake up a mere 2.5 hours later...
Exhausted today...