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

@Popping13 how did the subsequent nights go? I have something similar with my daughter and bought gripe water thr other day, yet to try it though. Will definitely be using it tomorrow after reading about your success! Hope it continued for you.

@Restingpotato
It's been very successful so far, intact she has been sleeping longer stretches than just 1.5 to 2 hours now. Pretty sure she went 4 hours last night.

Definitely worth a try :D
Do let us know how you get on

@Popping13 remind how how old is you little one?

9 month

Hi mum's & dads.

Firstly, if you're bub has stinky runny poo (3+ a day) they could have diarrhea (in which case should pass within a couple of days sounds like for most of you this isn't the case)

A few things to try if you haven't already -
Breastfed bub: write down what you eat and drink during the day and see if anything makes a difference.
Bottle bubs: may be worth changing to a formula that works with intolerances.

Colicky babies tend to have trapped wind making them super uncomfortable so even if they are burping and farting well, they could still be Colicky. Try changing to an anti colic bottle such as nuk. If your baby prefs being on their tummy even if thats on your chest etc then colic may be to blame and unfortunately for some bubbas it does hang around for a bit.

One thing that really helped us was gas drops. We used a product called calmosine, we used it for about 10 days and it really helped but we also have friends who used it longer and loved it too. Obviously check with your doc before giving any meds to your bub.

Hope this will help

Hi There,

First of all it's really reasurring that I'm not the only one going through this and it seems to be quite a common complaint.

My 6 month old daughter is having the exact same problem. She has also had this on and off since around a month old. The constant gurgling, popping sounds in her belly and the pain that comes with it. I have 3 other children and they were fine. The only time she is settled and will go straight to sleep is if I sit her laying on my legs while I lean back on the headboard, it seems to relieve her pain. She is breastfed but does have one formula bottle before bed. I have also tried going dairy free and lactose free for 2 weeks, which seemed to ease it a bit but not completely. I will try gripe water tonight to see if that helps.

You feel so helpless. I'm going to stop breastfeeding soon as I'm due to go back to work and may try the soya baby milk and see if that makes a difference. I've contacted health visitors and GPs and they all say the same thing, that it's probably gas and try going dairy free etc.

Does anyone have any updates or solutions?

Thanks
Leanne

Did anyone get to the bottom of this?

I have a 5 month old and all through the night he is twitching, lifting his legs and waking himself up. His belly makes popping noises throughout the night.

I have been dairy free for nearly 8 weeks now with little improvement.
I want to stop pumping as it is such a tie! But because Dr thinks he's dairy free I can't just give him any formula 😢 we have aptamil Pepti 1 which he HATES!

I thought because of the bubbling in his belly it might be trapped wind and this pointed more to lactose intolerance. So I bought Kendamil lactose free. He LOVED it. But his belly did not. He was a terror to put to bed. He was screaming and nothing could settle him. So ruled that out. But now I wonder if it was because of the sudden shock to his belly that he was having dairy again.

I just feel so helpless. He has never gone continuously through the night and is always wriggling around like he is pain.

He is absolutely fine in the day. But as soon it is comes to the night he is a different baby! 😢

Please let me know if you have had any success.

Ps we have used gripe water every night for about 2 months after his last feed. But it actually makes no difference. He still wriggles around xx

My daughter is almost 3 months but has had the exact same issue since she was 7-8weeks.. very constant after 8 weeks for sure.. I thought that switching from breast to bottle was doing it and then I researched and started burping her during feedings every couple ounces or so nothing seemed to help the Gripe Water does calm the symptoms doesn't take it away but it seems to help you can give it up to 15 times a day which I don't it's only maybe twice a day that I do it but I'm thinking of adding a third time to see if that improves it at all I find it quite alarming that's so many of us have this problem and I think it's with the formula so I thought maybe she was dehydrated and started to give her Pedialyte cut with distilled water and that seem to improve it improved even more to like one episode of the gurgling and pain later in the day but for not very long when I did more Pedialyte than water in the mix so I'm almost certain formula feeding the babies is not getting them enough hydration and she pees just fine 60 diapers a day it's never been a problem but the Pedialyte definitely made a difference and definitely helps her with the gurgling and the tummy aches and everything I've gone today without Pedialyte and it was worse but I'll let you know how it goes if I find anything new

Forgot to mention that I went through every type of formula and right now we do the Similac Alimentum that does the best or the Enfamil hypoallergenic one I also sometimes do the soy but there seems to be no difference with the soy or not in fact even the Similac Sensitive same results no difference not better or worse but I tend to stick to the hypoallergenic one just to be safe