Newborn screams through night with trapped wind.

[Summersun91]

Since night 2 my baby screams, wriggles, grunts with trapped wind all night long. She’s now 2 weeks old and it’s the same every night. She is EBF. My husband and I are sleeping in shifts to try and comfort her whilst the other sleeps, but he is back at work soon so I’m worried how we will cope.
She sleeps fine during the day.
At night we even struggle to get her comfortable when sleeping on us, so the cot is out of the question and I can’t see how co-sleeping could work either since she still can’t sleep on us.
We also have another DS who is 2 and is up at 6am so we both have to be up then.
We’ve tried bicycle legs and massage. Sometimes they help but even when she releases wind it only relieves her for a few mins before she starts screaming again.
I’m going to get some Infacol but I think I’ll struggle with that for every feed as often I put her on the boob quickly to stop her crying, and she falls asleep on it after 5min so I end up feeding her about 10x per night during my shifts.

Midwives and HV just say it’s normal but that’s not helping me to cope.

Any suggestions of anything I could try?

Thanks

I’m sorry you’re suffering, the disrupted and lack of sleep is so tough. If she’s struggling with trapped wind, try keeping her upright after feeds for a while to allow it come out as a burp. From experience of having EBF babies it can be this while till their digestive systems mature unfortunately but, I would suggest getting her seen by a breastfeeding counsellor to check her latch and for a tongue tie. I found my little ones were swallowing air when feeding and improving both of those things helped, especially when they were screamy and swallowing air that way. Hope this passes for you soon.

That’s rough 😢. Our last girl had a lot of gas problems as well. Gently squeezing their legs to their chest helped to squeeze farts out. Unfortunately there isn’t loads you can do until their guts mature some more.

My little boy was the same, I gave gripe water and cut dairy. Hope it gets better soon!

Sorry if this sounds daft but are you winding them after every feed? My DC3 was a bit like this and we really had to spend at least 5 mins or so, often longer, keeping them upright and parting their backs to get burps up after a feed and it did help. It also did just really improve with time gradually like other people have said. Well, the tummy troubles - Unfortunately at 1 he's still an utterly horrific sleeper.

Thanks for your reply. I didn’t know keeping her upright would help with burps.

i also hadn’t considered a tongue tie - I don’t know too much about them. She doesn’t have obvious signs like appearing to have problems latching and the latch seems fairly deep, and she was also back at her birth weight after 5 days so implies she is feeding ok, but I will look into it in case that could be a problem.

Thank you, yes this is what we are doing and it helps a bit but doesn’t seem to get rid of her discomfort.

Thank you.

She doesn’t have other obvious signs of intolerance (rash, dodgy nappies) so I hope it isn’t a dairy intolerance.

i can look into gripe water though. I tried Infacol once today, but she threw up the whole feed afterwards so I’m reluctant to try again.

Thanks, yes I am winding her and sometimes I get burps out. Not a daft suggestion as one midwife told me I didn’t need to wind her being breastfed!

We found a huge difference when we were shown a winding technique by an ex Nicu nurse. Sit them on your knee, one hand on their back and one of their chest. Then gently rock them round. Sort of like they are a weeble. It sounds ridiculous, but the trapped wind it released in our DD was unreal.

Also if it's mainly nighttime and when lying flat then consider silent reflux - it can very often be worse at night. Keeping upright for a good while after feeds also helps with this.

We ended up with the next to me crib slightly tilted with our youngest. It absolutely isn't recommended but it was the only thing that helped her sleep without being held due to reflux

Have you looked at what you are eating and drinking in the evening? Could something be causing her wind. Keep a food diary and see if there is a link. Dairy foods, milk and cheese are thought cause wind. DS was EBF and had a reaction to cows milk when we started weening him. I don’t like dairy, apart from cheese, he did have cholic in the evenings but I never made the connection until weening. I cut out dairy until he stopped bf.

He did get used to dairy by 12mnths but we did it gradually. He’s now 21 and eats like a horse, anything and everything, but like me he doesn’t like raw tomato. No problem if they are cooked but my taste buds can detect a single seed in a sandwich. Apparently I would throw up anything with tomatoes in when I was weened. I do have a latex allergy and some related plants can have an undesirable effect such as bananas. DS is also allergic to latex and hates bananas. He loved them as a child but complained that they burned his mouth. Also the elastic in pampers nappies caused a skin reaction so we stuck to Huggies.

can you raise one end of the cot slightly? My son was Ebf too & had silent reflux so at night he was horribly uncomfortable as the reflux was burning his throat and giving him tummy ache. In the day he tended to be more sat up on me after a feed or in his bouncer which explained why it didn’t bother him. We had some awful nights until we figured it out!
We elevated the head of his cot slightly, made sure to burp him on my shoulder after every feed and before the final feed before putting him down to bed at about 7pm he had infant gaviscon which the GP prescribed.
I would mix it into a tiny bit of breast milk in a bottle and he would gulp it down and then straight onto my boob without even realising.
he grew out of it when he was a bit older and more mobile but really helped the first few months!

Second this - gripe water is brilliant

Have you tried wonky winding. Look it up on YouTube... Really helped me. But unfortunately at 2 weeks old being held at night is often necessary- they are upping your supply.... I also tilted the crib, and stuffed the sheet down my top- particularly when boobs were full and leaky. When I fed her- I put a hot water bottle in the crib- as I felt going from a warm body to a cold sheet would be horrible....
It does get better- look at cluster feeding, and if you are struggling with feeding- there is the national breastfeeding helpline, and your local breastfeeding groups...

We had the same with my boy, he’s 12 weeks now and it feels like a distant memory. It got much better from about 8 weeks and now it’s not an issue. We tried infacol but it made him really refluxy which sounds similar to your baby’s reaction - we switched to colief and that was much better. The orange flavour in infacol apparently doesn’t agree with all babies. For burping, I found the most effective way was to put him over my shoulder and then do gentle wiggles / circles with his bottom using my other hand. Really focusing on burping thoroughly helped a bit too.

I know it’s absolutely awful when you’re going through it and saying it’ll pass is no consolation, but it honestly will. I hope you find some things to help a bit in the meantime.

My dd had to sleep slightly propped up she had a yellow pages under the head area of her noses basket cot mattress for a few months.

Definitely would recommend the ‘weeble’ technique mentioned in the earlier post and we used Infracol with the raised head end of the cot and the combination seemed to work. Hope you find your winning solution for your small one in the replies soon and you manage to all get a good nights rest.

Look at what you’re eating! Some foods will cause your baby to have wind!

My youngest didn’t have typical tongue tie symptoms. He just made a weird clicking sound very occasionally as a newborn! Turned out he had quite a bad tongue tie and snipping it helped. May not be that, but just another perspective. Hope you’re ok and be kind to yourself, it’s a tough time x

Fennel tea works brilliantly . Mix fennel seeds with hot water and drink a couple of mugs a day.
You can also carefully give your baby a spoonful. It works to settle their stomach.

Ours was formula fed but how we got taught to wind when he was colicky and it really works. It meant no romantic feeds - he was fed bolt upright with his legs under our leg and hand on his back and then rotated around like a weeble until he gave off the most tremendous burps, but it worked.

Please, please, please try and access a full feeding assessment with a qualified lactation consultant (someone with an IBCLC qualification). Winding babies (breastfed babies in particular) has been shown to have no effect on crying but can, in fact, increase sickness episodes.

Grunting and wriggling could be infant dyschezia which is completely normal and harmless and doesn't mean the baby is in pain. It's also completely normal for babies not to want to be put down and to be held and rocked and nursed.

Feeding 10times overnight for a 2wk old is not excessive.

Of course, this doesn't mean it's at all easy (especially with another child who needs your attention) and your gut is telling you that something is up but (1) GPs and midwives tend to give poor feeding advice and (2) a LOT is blamed on wind and tongue ties when they are rarely the problem. Sometimes even the smallest adjustment to how you position the baby can make an enormous difference to comfort and efficiency in feeding and therefore to how much rest you all get!

I went through all this (is it over supply, wind, tongue tie, latch???) it was all of those and it was cmpa. When I cut dairy all the symptoms went away within a few days. When I drank a glass of milk a few weeks later we had a night of screaming.

Both my dc have cmpa with different presentations. One screamed all the time, the other was happy as Larry but nappies full of blood and eczema. So don't think you need to tick all the symptoms.

You could try several options...

1. Report to A&E, be admitted and have them monitor you. This can be helpful if you suspect a real problem rather than just 4th trimester cant be put down type baby.

This will help with diet / feeding issues like intolerance, tongue tie, laryngomalacia, GORD.

1. Remove dairy from your diet for a few months and see if this helps.
2. Pay privately to eliminate potential problems, I.e. tongue tie, GORD, milk allergy.

I have had a 2nd born with GORD and it was hell on earth. This is your second born, if you feel something is 'off' trust your instincts. Dont be fobbed off.

Bear in mind GORD babies CANNOT lie down. And reflux is often caused by intolerance to milk.

My 3rd baby was allergic to milk, not just intolerant. And had tongue tie and laryngomalacia which caused regular reflux and inability to feed. We had many problems from day one and I had to keep visiting a&e and be admitted to work out way through them.

It can be a long road but if you sense its not right follow your gut. Yes its exhausting going through a&e for example but once you are on the ward they are lovely, it took me around 4 stays 3rd time to get everything sorted.

If you suspect GORD or cmpa/cmpi avoid infacol it is an absolute no for those babies due to acidity content.

If you have any questions on any of above happy to answer x

So sorry you got poor advice. Babies need to be winded however they are fed because they gulp air down however they feed.

gripe water helped my baby. We were BF and pumping for bottles.

also put some bricks under one end of the cot so their head is raised.

Oof yeah my baby had horrific colic too. I had to try and burp her between each boob, and after her feed. Then keep her upright for as long as possible (30 mins ideally) after every feed too which was horrific in the night when you’re up every other hour feeding and so sleep deprived.
lots of tummy time during the day to try and work on the muscles internally, which will help as she grows. My girl grew out of it by about 3 months and at 5 months onwards only spews a little bit after BF sometimes.
she had awful colic and silent reflux which was also made worse by her having a tongue tie which was cut at 5 weeks (and that helped a lot too).
have you also tried feeding her on you so you are reclined, or in a koala hold? Sometimes that can help too. And baby massage helps as well.
sorry times are tough. I’ve been there.