5 month old stomach crunching and waking

[LauraGeorge]

Hi there,

I’m having terrible nights with my 5 month old. He used to sleep from 10pm-5am until he was 13 weeks and then he started this stomach crunching movement in his sleep.

He will thrust his head forwards and backwards and bring his knees up and push them away while he’s asleep for about 2 minutes before he wakes up and cries. I am thinking it must be trapped wind or a tummy ache. Sometimes me holding him or laying him on my tummy can give him some comfort and relief but not always. Sometimes, this can happen from 3am onwards, other times it is every half an hour all night. He has no temperature, he’s very happy during the day, he has bowel movements and farts away easily during the day.

He is exclusively BF and during the night, I offer him the boob to see if it’s hunger but he will take this maybe twice out of all the awake times.

A friend recommended I cut out dairy to see if it makes a difference so I am on day 3 of that and I have also bought some OptiBac probiotics to see if they help. It just seems strange that he didn’t used to have these problems so surely if it was a cows milk intolerance, he wouldn’t have slept for long stretches before?

I used to give him Infacol and Colief when he was younger but stopped when they didn’t seem to have much effect.

With probiotics, it says for breastfeeding mothers and babies so should I take one a day as well as giving him a sachet in expressed milk?

I had mastitis around the 3 month mark and had some antibiotics, I’m so hoping these have not had a bad effect on his gut or anything :-(

If anyone has any experiences or advice, it would be much appreciated.

P.S have tried all massaging, bicycle legs, tummy time, warm bath before bed to no avail.
Thank you in advance

Could it be due to learning to move/roll/sit rather than stomach ache?

My boy kept rolling/trying to roll in his sleep when he first learnt to do it, His sleep was really affected for a couple weeks.

Hey, have you thought it may be constipation, my son has suffered with it for a year, I took him to his GP and he was given laxatives, they helped for a while then had to be changed after a few months.

What @Crabbitstick said, could it be because he is learning to roll over onto his tummy/move in different ways? My ds is 5 months and was also doing this since 4 months. He wouldn't settle at all and we had such terrible nights as he just kept getting onto his tummy and then waking himself up.

I ended up trying my sisters sleepyhead pod and it was a miracle, he stopped this and slept all the way through the night and we now have at least 8 hours sleep every night. He literally doesn't move a muscle all night! I have no idea why, I think he just feels so snug!