7 w old Noises at night - normal??

[OperaPanda]

LO is quite good at night, she goes 4h (even 5h30 the last couple of days!) and 3h at night.

The first part of the night (11pm-4am) is often very quiet. She's silent, in a very deep sleep. But the second part of the night is always noisy. Sometimes just for an hour, sometimes for the whole second half (4-7am). On a couple of occasions she did it the entire night.

She grunts, trashes, moves her head from one side to the other quickly, has very quick loud and irregular breathing, does clicking sounds with her mouth. When I look at her, she sometimes has her eyes open, rubs her eyes with her hands and gets the Moro reflex a couple of times per minute. It looks exhausting. She suddenly calms down and falls asleep and silent but this only lasts between 1-5 minutes then the cycle starts again. A cycle can be: noise for 10min with thrashing with eyes closed and open/1min of shut eye.

She's a very quiet baby and for example can wait for 30min with hunger cues without crying if I don't respond immediately. She will eventually cry though of course. So the fact that she never cries during the night makes me think she's ok... She's putting on weight like a champ, eats well (EBF), has ok nappies, and looks well during the day (although easily overtired). I'm thinking that she wouldn't seem to be thriving if she was sleep deprived at night.

But still. Is that normal? The sound and the worry keep me awake at night and I'm becoming seriously sleep deprived. Should I just relax?

My mum says baby can sleep with eyes open and that she might just be asleep albeit noisy. But she wouldn't rub her eyes and have them really wide open, would she?

I'm thinking this could be silent reflux but she doesn't do it in the day nor every night and doesn't cry so seems unlikely?

It sometimes help when I shush-pat but sometimes doesn't.
I've tried swaddling but she gets upset (the Moro reflex isn't what wakes her up on these occasions though. seems more like a side effect of being worked up)
I'm reluctant to pick her up as she does keep falling asleep though. And sometimes it stops on its own after 30min.
When it goes on forever, taking her and bringing her on my chest allows her to sleep soundly.

Advice and help welcome! Thank you :)

Bump

I've had two extremely noisy babies.... grunting, squawking through the night etc. Slept silently during the day. Nothing medically wrong as far as I'm aware.

Video your DC & show it to your health visitor or GP to check though.

Thanks Drama. Will do.

Like you she doesn't grunt during the day and very exceptionally the first half of the night.
What bugs me is that something she really looks awake, when most threads about grunting mention eyes closed and babies clearly sleeping.

My 8 week old does this and my other 2 kids did too. It’s just something they grow out of. We’re always very disturbed from around 4am until we get up. I think it’s just another version of the witching hour!

I could write your post word for word. My baby is 11 weeks old. Exactly the same, peaceful daytime sleep, peaceful night time sleep, until 4-5am, thrashing, grunting, kicking, on a cycle every few minutes, like she is being disturbed by something. But when she wakes she is happy, so I presume she can’t be in pain? She does pass wind during this time too, so maybe it’s trapped wind? I try and pull her legs up to her tummy and it does push more out (and wake her up, unfortunately). Like you, if we have her on our chest she is calm, so most days from 5 onwards that’s where she is.
I’ve been told she will grow out of it, so we shall see. Interesting other babies do the same thing at the same time though!

(My baby does have her eyes closed during this though, rather than open, that’s the only difference to your post)

Totally normal - they’re learning to poo :)

Mine did something similar , sounded like they were having a boxing match punching and kicking. It’s calmed down allot now (we are at 11 weeks).

Sounds just like DS was for weeks and weeks and weeks which stopped me sleeping so I was a wreck.

He's currently quietly snoozing, still, upstairs in his cot at 28 weeks :)

This is like my 5 week old. I cannot sleep due to 1-the stress and worry that something is wrong and 2- the noise. As you say pleasant when fully awake and again my little one very rarely cries. It's baffling and worrying. My DH has done the night feeds last night as FF and I have been awake more with the noise from both of them. I wish someone could tell me what's wrong?!

Grunting baby syndrome...dd had it and drove me mental. Stopped at around 11-12 weeks...hang in there!