HELP US! BABY HAS Constant Gas!

[Mazzamazuki]

My 4wk old has virtually stopped sleeping. She will eat and then we will spend a good 2hrs winding her otherwise she just wakes up after 20mins. It's a killer at nighttime and I can't move during the day because I'm either feeding or winding her! Any advice/experience please share!!! I'm so tired

Mine is 5 weeks old and so I’m not exactly the voice of experience. Have you tried keeping her awake during a feed to make sure it’s not hunger waking her? Tried keeping her as upright as possible during feed? Could try infacol as that apparently makes it easier to get the wind out (we use it).
Could also be a growth spurt and her cluster feeding, in which case it may pass in a few days.
With you in the tiredness!

That sounds really tough. I have a windy baby too but don’t have experience of winding him for long periods of time (the burps come up almost instantly) so I can’t imagine how exhausting that is for you. Have you tried using a sling with her? I’ve found that really helpful for freeing up my hands during the day and also keeping her upright will help with her digestion. My DS does his best daytime naps in his sling now.

I will say that it took some persistence to get DS to happily go in a sling so don’t give up if she appears to hate it the first time you try. I used to just put DS in for a few minutes a day at first. I’d also recommend going to a sling library if you can to test out a few different slings and you can hire them very cheaply- I’ve got a Caboo sling for three months for only £10. I think young babies tend to prefer fabric slings over more structured carriers. It took me a while to get confident using mine but there are loads of YouTube videos that show you how to put them on.

DS is 10 weeks old now and although he still has problems with his digestion it is much improved from week 5.

We use Infacol before each feed and it helps a bit but not enough, we thought maybe a growth spurt too, how long can growth spurts last? She's been demanding more food since last week and I don't want to over feed

My DS has always been a windy baby and it took so long to get him to burp after feeds. As he got to about 8 weeks we then found he'd spend the night trying to fart and pulling his legs up all the time.

It does get easier as he now just self burps himself. However I'd try stopping the feed after every 3 minutes and making sure you get a burp before relatching, sometimes laying flat for a min or so helps to get it up. We found it really did work! I also found that probiotics have helped my DS so much. I thought he'd grown out of the farty stage but I forgot to give him his probiotics the other day and he spent most of the night with his legs in the air! I use these ones if you are interested.

BioGaia ProTectis Probiotic Drops 5ml https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00JF46L9G?ref=yopoppmaswf

You can’t overfeed, give the baby more milk if that is what they want. As for winding, 2 hours is excessive, how are you winding? Do you try different techniques? If I don’t get it after a few minutes I try a different position, if it’s extra stubborn I lay them down a minute and the sit them up and try again. Worst comes to worst, I let them sleep upright on me for 30 minutes until I put them down. Theres no need for 2 hours of back patting at all! TBH, that sleep pattern just sounds like a newborn though.

Don't get me wrong, I do feed her whenever she gives me hunger cues I'm just concerned I could be missing something because a) it's constant b) she's 4 weeks old and knocking back 150 - 180mls per feed and c) occasionally throws it up come the evening.

The winding is a case of wind for 5 mins, lay her down, she settles for 10, pick her up and wind her again, she burps, lay her down again, she settles...you see the pattern. I can recognise the cry too it's wind and it just goes on and on for hours.

I'll give sitting her upright for 30 mins a shot and the baby wrapping. I'll look into the probiotics