Gassy 6 month old

[Candyyoung]

Hi everyone,

Thought I’d pop on here as my husband and I are pretty much at breaking point and desperately looking for answers!

We have a 6 1/2 month old baby who’s exclusively breastfed and pretty much his whole life has suffered at night with wind and pain. He brings his legs up, tenses, screams and cries and is pretty much inconsolable. I try to do bicycle legs but as he’s so stiff he just won’t let me.
I tend to feed him back to sleep but I fear that that’s adding to the wind building up in his stomach.

We are up every hour and sometimes every minute and it’s just become totally unmanageable!

We went to a paediatrician who suggested cutting dairy, which I’ve done, but I’m seeing no signs of improvement. I don’t think it’s a reflux thing as there’s no suggestion of that in his behaviour.

All of our sleep is so broken and worst of all the baby has to spend the whole night in pain.

Does anyone have any experience of this and knowledge of what the hell can be done to solve it?

Big thanks and Happy New Year!

X

It does sound like reflux to me. My DD was always much worse at night. How long ago did you cut out dairy? Have you also cut out soy?

A lot of people have mentioned reflux but I don’t see any of the behaviours that come with reflux? Yes, soy has been cut too. This is my third week of no dairy and I’m happy to be patient but just seems weird that he’s getting worse at night, never mind better x

Have you ever had him assessed for a tongue tie? My daughter had similar and she turned out to have CMPI and tongue tie so changing formula to nutramigen made a big difference but also had her tongue tie revised and lip tie cut using laser at 6 months as still troubled by wind. She had it cut at 11 days old but it had regrown and was just a tether of scar tissue along the underside of her tongue.

Lastly a dose of gripe water before bed, usually given in the bath, seems to help settle her belly and still doing it at nearly 13 months as tried stopping and defo not placebo! Also tried giving with every feed but seemed to make worse so stick with the bedtime dose.

She still can be troubled by trapped burps but above sorted her for most part and she sleeps through generally bar teething and weaning reactions - she was also a 1-2 hourly waker, dummy helped a lot to get her back over though. Didn't change her milk until 6 months and she does seem to have a more sensitive gut when trying new foods and I wonder if related and why finds the gripe water helpful still. She also reacts to soya so that's something to look at.

It was 3-3.5 weeks post milk change that realised suddenly how much easier things were with the wind, and I understand it takes longer if breastfeeding. But her reflux was gone in a week and she dropped a nappy size despite weight gain as bloat disappeared (that I thought was belly chub ). And she could be put down to nap after a week, even if only 30 mins naps initially, which was a massive change from previous contact napping.

For the tongue and lip tie we went privately to a specialist in Huddersfield but he has a colleague in London.

The first 6 months of her life were so awful due to trapped wind and reflux, she would only nap on us I think in part due to this meaning she was elevated so helped the wind and reflux discomfort, and the nights when we put her to sleep in the cot she was so unsettled.

Do you still burp him after feeds? We still make an effort even now after a bottle to try get one burp out though less so since she's started cruising after 12 months but stopping burping when normally do at 4-6 months would defo have not worked for her!

Sorry for the essay but hopefully some food for thought I hope things get better for you as they did for us

Drawing knees up sometimes signifies colic. My 2nd son had this at days old. Midwife suggested infacol liquid and it worked x

I'm here to say this sounds like reflux.

My little girl was the very same. I took her to everyone and anyone looking for help. Reflexology was good believe it or not.

But as soon as we got the gaviscon, I seen an improvement and they then put her on the stronger reflux medication.

She started on reflux medication at 6 months too and then by 9 months I started weaning her off it. She didn't have the wet burps you commonly hear about with reflux. I could just never get her wind up. I also went dairy free and it made no difference.

She did have tongue tie but it was noticed in the hospital so wasn't a contributing factor.

The first 6 months were honestly the hardest but she is now the most pleasent little thing in the world.

She can also tolerate dairy as she is fully weaned so really wasn't that. I stayed dairy free though until she was 1. Just in case, I didn't want anything to put us back to where we were!!

I hope you find something that works for you. It really is trial and error and it can be a very lonely time when your in the height of it

Hi @Candyyoung did this resolve? We’re in a similar position x

Please try gluten. Was my source of reflux