6mo nightly waking and back arching

[stowbeau]

My six month old is waking every half an hour or hour or sometimes two hours during the night, she's not waking because she's hungry, she seems to be in some discomfort. First I thought it was teething but I give her paracetamol or ibuprofens and it makes no difference at all, this makes me think that it's not necessarily that kind of pain that's waking her.

She twists and arches her back and tries to turn, and cries out and seems to be in pain to me or in some discomfort, but I don't really know why and I don't know what to do about it.

I can sometimes comfort her by holding my hand on her stomach, or sometimes by holding her arms down so that I guess she feels more secure, sometimes rubbing her feet or hands seems to help. But then again she awake half an hour or an hour later.

I only feed her once in the night at about 2 AM.

I'm feeling utterly exhausted and I'm not sure what to do. I feel like I have tried everything.

Has anyone else had any experience of this?

Does anyone know why she might be waking like this?

Thanks

The wording of your posts seems to suggest that you think this is a stomach or digestive problem? It could be.

It is also not unusual for back arching (often alongside inconsolable crying) is a sign of exhaustion and frustration at not being able to sleep when she wants to sleep. My 6 month old DD does the same and has done for a while. It's just petulant, angry expression of exhaustion in my daughter and means she is overtired.

The back arching in my DD usually means 'get off me, let me go to sleep'. She has a dummy to get her to sleep. I find her favoured sleep position is on her side now so as soon as I put her dummy in when she's in the cot, she rolls onto her side and her eyes go.

Could you try a dummy or other sleep comforter?

Thanks for the reply.

With your daughter - does she wake up doing the back arching / twisting / turning etc or does she do it when she can't sleep for a while? My daughter wakes appearing to be in discomfort.

Sometimes she's not even awake and doing it and making sort of crying noises.

I have tried to give her a dummy but she won't take it, I try to get her to bite on my finger whivh occasionally soothes her, she's not interested in her usual toys or comforters when she's like this.

Thanks

Yes arching can be colic/reflux/stomach pains so I would suggest get this checked - at 6 months my son started arching at his bottle and the hv suggested discomfort due to teething.

So the arching seems common, but the reasons vary. It must be easier when they can talk and tell you what's wrong surely?!

Certainly worth investigating with the doctors, since your instincts suggest discomfort.

With my DD, yes it will be an immediate thing she does if she is woken up by something and is still tried and wants to sleep more Not when she wakes up because she's had enough sleep though.

If one of her older siblings make a loud noise which wakes her, this back arching and inconsolable crying would be her immediate response. If it was an adult (like me) the response is basically saying "Argh shit, I am so, so, so tired. Why, why WHY can I not get back to bloody sleep! Grrr "

We have a tooth! So it is after all teething!! Last night I gave her paracetamol at 4 hour intervals throughout the night plus teething gel and she slept much better (although I still didn't lol!,)

Hope the same works tonight!

FATEdestiny can't imagine how much worse it is with two!, hope you get some rest and thanks all for replies

Good luck stow hope you've solved it and get some sleep.