5 month old has gurgling/painfull tummy keeping him awake at night.

[Mum2Kaden]

Hi There

Until now, I have been hoping that my 5 month old baby boy would 'grow out' of his nighttime sleeping pattern but I now feel that I would like to know if anyone else has had a similar problem.

I place him to bed around 9pm and by 9.30 he is awake and crying in pain. When I pick him up, I can hear his tummy gurgling (almost like a popping sound)and he is wriggling around in my arms. I must say at this point that I don't think it's trapped wind, although it seems like the likely answer, he is great at burping and the is no shortage of gas coming from his bottom either! in fact, there is plenty.
He usually wakes 3-4 times per night with the same problem. It seems better when I pick him up but only temporarily and then he wriggles around in pain again and cries. I have elevated his mattress as I thought it might be acid reflux (he has no issue during the day), but this hasn't helped either.
He is exclusively breastfed, although I do feel like he drinks a lot of milk and I had thought this might be a contributing factor. Therefore, I tried a small amount of baby rice last week but I feel if anything it made it worse.
I know he isn't waking up due to hunger, as he can go back to sleep again without a feed. He does seek milk for comfort during the early hours, which i do give him as he won't settle without it. I know he would be able to go through the night without milk if he didn't have this issue as he is so drowsy when it happens that it must be so painfull to wake him in the first place.

I currently live in Greece, so access to HV etc is not readily available here and our private peadiatrician says it's quite normal for babies to have tummy problems but none of my friends babies suffered like this and there is no info on-line....please help!

Thanks

have you any food intolerances? or has babies father got any?
sounds like either the milk is fermenting in his stomach and causing wind or he is has developed a food intolerance that is being passed through your breast milk.

firstly try cutting out wheat based products from YOUR diet. if not that, try cutting out dairy.
it may also be that his friendly bacteria have not developed properly. in BF'd babies the predominat bug is bifidum infantis, it may be that he doesn't have enough which is causig the milk to go partly undigested and so ferment giving off the loads of gas both ends. the best bug supplement for this age I have come across is ''solaray's babylife''

www.positivehealthshop.com/itemdetl.php/itemprcd/SRAY-14043

not sure if you can buy in the shops over there but you can get mail order quite easy but I don't like ordering internationally as the bugs shouldn't be out of a fridge for more than 48 hours.

Sounds like dairy intolerance (you'll need to cut dairy out for 2 weeks to tell) or foremilk/hindmilk imbalance (i.e. too much lactose-containing foremilk), which block feeding will help. Read up on it on Kellymom.com and see if any of the symptoms match.

Yuck, rice cereal! Viva la BLW!

Thanks for your advice. I will try cutting out the dairy from my diet, as I do drink a lot of milk.
Yeah Ches, the baby rice is YUK! It was what I was advised to give as he is still only 5 months...he loved it though!

Misi - thanks for the link for the babylife supplement. I will try to get some to see if that helps him.

your replies are much appreciated!

Just wondering if u ever got to the bottom of your child's gurgle troubles..I am having the exact same problem with my 7 month old son..two docs..no answers..help very much appreciated

Would be very helpful if people came back to tell others what they found out! Why is this happening to our babies?

Food allergies/intolerances?

My 6 month old is having the exact same problem but he had always been formula fed so it's nothing I am eating. The doctor won't do anything - not even check for silent reflux which is what I think it might be?? I am fed up with people saying it's normal and will pass when it doesn't seem normal at all!

I had this with my first, we never got to the bottom of it. She had silent reflux too and we were on the dairy free diet for ages but it didn't improve anything. (Maybe slghtly? ) she was a terrible sleeper until she was 2...but the gas was improvilng steadily from about 14 months.
My second has also terrible gas, but all bottom gas, same story, just waiting fir him to outgrow it. Also on dairy free diet. I would say, try going dairy free for 2-3 weeks, read labels for hidden dairy too (e.g. Whey protein etc). It's worth a shot.

I am having the same issue with my now 8 month old. It has been going on for 3 months now. I have seen 2 pediatricians. First Zantac, then Prevacid, then Hyosen (none of these helped). Baby ended up with blood in stools thus a visit to ER. Er doc referred to Pediatric GI doctor.
The formula was changed to Nutramigen. The nutramigen corrected the stool bc the protein is already broken down so that the baby can easily digest it. We are now seeing the top Pediatric GI doctor in our area. As of now our baby still has stomach issues and pain at night. We are going back to Pediatric GI. For this visit our baby will see the Pediatric doctor and the Pediatric dietitian. I am frustrated at times from sleepless nights with no answer however, I will not stop until I get to the bottom of this issue for my baby. Above all I am praying for my baby and all the people on this forum I truly understand what you are going through. I will respond back with any successful answers.

^^Hi. My baby is 12 months and she just started with whole milk and she's been like that waking up crying, screaming in the middle of the night, I read the comments here and I tried the lactose free milk but that makes her get constipated, I asked her pediatrician and he just told me she should be drinking milk anymore. I feel hopeless on what to do.

I meant "shouldn't"

Do you have any feedback on the investigations on your little one?

Hi iv seen your reply to an add on here from 2017 and wondered if you could let me know your outcome, the reason i ask is my 9 month old has had non stop issues since he was 2months he has since been on a dairy free diet and soya free for the last 3 months however things are not improving im on a 3 month waiting list to see a specialist but not sure if this will help. He is up during the night squirming, gurning, crying belly gurggling and then he will some times pump and it helps him, his toilets are from one end of the scale to the other and im concerned he has maybe a bowel issue as i did when i was 5 months old so id really like to know what the specialists ended up saying to you and did you get a good outcome? Thank you x

Hi.

Did you ever get to the bottom of this? We’re currently having the same problem with our daughter. Would love to no if it got sorted out? Thanks.

Yes me too, also experiencing the same issue with my son

Hi... Yes, I have a 4month old who has always had a problem with silent reflux. He is formula fed. He is always fussy after a feed and kicking his legs and waving his arms around!! 🙈 We hardly get any sleep in the night to. If I pick him up he sleeps better.. I just Dont know what to do amymore. HELP!!!

@Victory16 and all the others posting on here in the past: did you ever get a clear answer? How are your little ones now? When/ how did they get better?

I've got a nearly 6 month old with these kind of stomach issues that are keeping him and me up all night. It's the gurgling described by all of you, crying in pain, and he's often refusing a feed (I'm breastfeeding) even though hungry. I've been dairy and soy free for 2 months, and have avoided eggs for a month. The GP keeps fobbing me off, says it's silent reflux & he'll grow out of it. It's been getting worse, if anything.

@nopun hi no pun, has anything improved for you guys yet, or anything made a difference? I’m experiencing exactly the same

Hi, sailing in the exact same ship as all of you.
Baby is 9 months, and literally has all the same symptoms as above, but is also constipated. Will be speaking to the doctor again tomorrow as I am pretty sure it's all related.

I know she can sleep through, but will always wake up crying for help in the middle of night. I can her gurgling and popping sounds which make her twitch and wake up.

This has been going on since 2 months old. Initially I thought it was silent reflux, which will get better once she's on solids, but that's only just made it worse.

I'll pop back on here if we ever find a solution for this.

I wish all the 2008 mums could give us an update.

Thanks @Popping13 and I’ll make sure I share anything I learn too. Have you ever noticed time where it has settled down? It did for us recently and then has now come back again!

@Littleman20
It's usually the night before we are due to call the doctor, like tonight.
So far, she's only woken up due to the pops once, had a wriggle about, passed wind and has settled again.
It may just he one of those things where they do genuinely grow out of it, but it's definitely not 'normal'. The one thing that I don't understand is that, she passes a lot of wind during the day, both ends and is quite active. No problems like this during day naps, so I don't know what's different at night.

Can you look into a full allergy blood test? I’m not sure how common it is in the uk, but my 6 month old has recently had one due to reacting badly to certain things and stomach gurgling, and they tested for hundreds of possible reactions. And it’s come back with clear answers of what things he’s actually allergic to rather than us having to do guess work. He’s only allergic to 3 things, and not dairy at all that I was restricting in my diet incase.

It’s now easier for us to go forward not letting him bear those things, and I haven’t eaten them either ( breastfed). He had his first decent nights sleep last night in months 7.30pm-8am, woke 4 times. It has been 9pm-5am with waking hourly so great improvement

@Caspianberg
Thank you for update! I doubt they'd do a full blood test here in the UK so easily.
I did speak to the GP today mainly about her constipation and also mentioned the belly trouble, but they've just said it was due to the constipation.

I'll see how it goes with the constipation medications and once that's sorted I'll know about the popping. I'm just hoping it doesn't trouble her much longer :(

Update:-

I gave her some gripe water before bed yesterday, and although I could still the pops and gurgles, she did not wake up.
Tried gripe water again today, she wriggled a little bit in the beginning then after 30 minutes of having it, she was sound asleep.

I will update if anything changes.