11 wk old waking every 2 hrs (or more!)

[jmarm]

Hello, please help!
I am a first time mum to a lovely 11 week old baby boy. But he wakes at least every two hours from midnight onwards, and I don't know what to do ! He is a very big boy (99.6 height percentile!) and is totally breastfed. He goes down beautifully at 6pm after a bath and massage (I tried putting him down later but he got cranky and wouldn't go down for hours then!). He then wakes at 9/10ish, and 12/1am for a feed. However after that he is up at least every 2 hours, sometimes every hour. He suffers from trapped wind which wakes him up, he is in terrible pain. I have tried infacol and gripe water which don't work for him. I give him a little feed after he wakes each time to get him to go down again as I am so knackered (also have 2nd bout of mastitis so am more tired than normal). He doesn't like to nap in the day, to get him to sleep in the day I have to walk him in the pram. Can anyone help? I am exhausted!
Thank you.

Hi jmarm are you sure it's wind? I thought my DS had wind at around this age but turned out to be silent reflux (writhing around, waking all the time etc).

Although the lack of day naps will be making him overtired - which can mean he will wake up a lot at night.

You could try elevating the head of his cot (books under the legs of the head end) which can help with wind. Also if you keep upright for 20 mins after a feed and wind for this time (I used to let DS sleep on my chest and rub, not pat, his back for the entire time. I'd always get a burp right at the end!!).

Re day naps, you should aim to get him napping 3-4 times a day even if they're 45 mins. My DS would only nap on me, in the sling or in the pushchair at that age!

If you work on the first nap - so try and get him to sleep after about 1 hour of being awake. Try feeding in a dim room and rocking to sleep or letting him fall asleep on you (that way you can get some rest too). Next naps, watch closely for tired signs (glazed eyes, looking away, yawning, fussing) and nap asap. Same for the next naps although try not to let him nap after 4pm. If you do this for a few days, you can work out a rough routine although it will change over time!

If you get him to take some of his naps on you (don;t worry you can teach him to nap in his cot when he's older), you can rest at the same time. That was what saved me from going mad with tiredness when DS was that little.

Igglybuff is absolutely right. At that age my DS could stay awake between an hour to an hour and a half before needing another nap.

My DS would only nap in the sling at that age too.

I would do whatever it takes to get him to take naps during the day, as otherwise the overtiredness will mean that he wakes frequently at night. 45 min naps are fine. Some babies do need a later afternoon nap at that stage, even if it's relatively close to bedtime.

Are you co-sleeping? You may find it helps you cope with the waking, even if it doesn't help him much.

Thank you both so much for your replies - this is my first time on Mumsnet and so nice to get your very helpful advice! I will try my best to get him to nap more tomorrow. Today was a disaster, he only had 2 naps of 30 mins... by 4pm he was crying and crying out of overtiredness and I had to put his bedtime forward, so am dreading tonight..
I have been looking up silent reflux symptons too, that sounds very familiar, although when he is writhing around in pain at night, once he is able to fart and release his wind he is no longer writhing around although it does happen again an hour or so later. He does fuss at the breast and arches his back too during a feed. He gets hiccups all the time, and his tummy is fizzing away, he sounds so windy so I thought that is what it was. What were the silent reflux symptons that your DS had?
He won't go to sleep on his back, and so I have to prop him on his side, it is the only way to get him to sleep in his cot. He sleeps better on his left hand side. Thank you, I will try to elevate his cot too. He was in neo-natal after birth and I had forgotten that they had all their little cots elevated at the head end.
It is always good to hear that other people understand, the only person I know with a baby the same age naps perfectly and sleeps from 11pm - 6am ! argh!

Other people's babies are so frustrating, aren't they?!

I'd get the relux thing checked out if I were you, although Igglybuff is in a much better position to advise. If I remember rightly, a lot of refluxy babies don't like sleeping on their backs.

Ignore the mum of the other perfect baby!!

Welcome to mumsnet by the way

Try not to stress too much about the naps - it will get easier although some days will be better than others. The most important thing is getting them to sleep in the day. The morning nap is always the easiest! I did find if I couldn't get DS to nap, I'd just let him "chill" by not directly playing with him, just put him in the sling and go for a walk or potter around the house. That way he could zone out. I also banned visitors and excitement after 4pm and never let him stay awake more than 1 hour until he was about 4 months old. Yes it was extreme but overtiredness is a killer.

My DS used to writhe at night - but the wind and silent reflux go hand in hand. My DS had bad wind and reflux because he is dairy intolerant - so any cows milk protein in my diet affects him. I cut out the main dairy products for a couple of weeks (milk, cheese, yoghurt, icecream, butter etc) and saw a huge difference. His wind got much better so I've not had dairy for about 7 months! It's worth a try although if you do, soya substitutes can cause the same problems. You can try rice or oat milk which have added calcium. And drink ovaltine!

I'd help him pass wind during the night as it would get worse towards the early hours of the morning (check out this video ) Tummy time before a bath also helped a bit although his reflux meant he didn't like being on his stomach too soon after a feed.

Signs of silent reflux - writhing during feeds, he'd want to feed for long stretches and he'd be straining, wet burps. He also started to refuse to feed when awake. Biggest clue though was he had a choking incident - he was on his back and some acid came up through his nose and he couldn't breathe. He went bright red and luckily we managed to clear his nose and he was fine. On other occasions I'd put him on his back in the playpen and he'd freeze, go bright red and catch his breath. He'd be fine once I picked him up. These incidents were caused by the acid coming up his throat.

We got infant gaviscon from the gp which had some success but found that ranitidine was much better as it neutralised the acid and it stopped DS writhing at night. Also stopped the funny breathing incidents.

You can make things more comfortable for your DS by feeding him in the most upright position (so his head is above his bum). I stopped feeding him lying down. Also do you know if you have an overactive letdown (i.e does your milk come out fast - clue would be your DS choking on the flow)? If so, you should lean back so the milk has to go uphill. Also try block feeding to reduce the speed (feed using one boob per feed. If you do this already, only switch boobs every other feed instead of at every feed).

Keeping upright after a feed is really important - my DS spent a lot of time in his bouncy chair!

I also put DS on his left hand side, propped up with a towel in his cot. Now he's 9 months and likes to sleep on his front. In fact the first night he did that he slept from 7pm til 3am Shame it's not that common for him to go for so long!

I agree Angel! although I'm inclined not to believe the other mums half the time especially as I am tempted to lie myself when I've had enough.

Igglybuff - thank you so much for your email. I have been totally re-reading it this morning after another awful night. Now that I know the silent reflux symptoms I am seeing them all in him - thank you for replying to me otherwise I wouldn't have had a clue as I had never heard of it before. For example every time I lay him on his back to change his nappy he chokes! I have booked my doctor's appointment! I have also cut out dairy. I had noticed previously that if I didn't have a big bowl of milky cereal in the morning he didn't seem to suffer as much with the wind, so now I am totally cutting out all cow's milk protein. You say that soya has the same effect, that is a shame as I have a fridge full of the stuff!!
You are quite right in that I do have a fast let down, DS chokes on the boob quite a lot. I used to alternate boobs each feed but I have tried giving him the same boob two feeds running.
I have also propped up the cot, put him on his left hand side propped up with a towel.
That is great that he once went 7pm - 3am!! Did you settle him on his side and he was able to roll over? Do you then remove the towel? What age was he able to do that?
Does your 9 month old still have it? Is he still on the Ranitidine?
Thank you again!!

Hi jmarm. Yes we used to put him down on his left hand side with his left arm outstretched to stop him rolling onto his front. Then once he learned to roll he flipped over all by himself. We didn't realise until it got to 10pm and he hand't woke up so we peeped in and he was on his front. So we took the towel away. He was nearly 6 months when he started. I'd read that there was no point trying to stop him once he could roll himself.
Yes, DS still has silent reflux although I think it's getting better now he's on solids. I've actually taken him off the ranitidine for three days to see how he gets on - he seems ok so far.

You can put his nappy changing mat and playgym on an incline (we bought a couple of wedges) to stop the choking (it used to freak me out). We got them from this website

Soya has the same effect in about 50% of babies who are allergic to dairy so you might be ok. Unfortunately my DS wasn't.

Glad to be of help!

I have a baby with silent reflux too and sleeping on front def helps. Mine is 4 months but after trying lots of things found that is the best. He is well able to push himself up and turn his head so I figure it is pretty safe and it is saving me from going insane. Ranitidine also good although GP quite reluctant to prescribe it initially as knew nothing about silent reflux. I had to really push for trial of it. Gaviscon didn't really work.

Hiya!

If not reflux, then this could be your problem - lactose overload is very common in breast-fed babies in particular, although FF babies can get it too.

There's not much to be done apart from feeding from one side only for 3-4 hours before swapping. The problem usually clears up by the time the baby's 3 months old. I'm pretty certain my DD had a mild form of this and it was a real swine for interfering with her sleep. We did gentle tummy massages after every nappy change to encourage the wind to pass and put her to sleep on her side, which seemed to help a little. I think it cleared up by the time she was about 10 weeks old, but it often lasts a bit longer than that.

Thank you guys!
I have got to the bottom of it - too much milk giving a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance giving all the symptoms of silent reflux and waking in pain every hr. Yesterday I gave him the same boob in the afternoon and evening and he went from 8.30pm - 1.30am ! Unheard of!! I had to keep checking that he was alive!
I had also bought a sleeping wedge from that reflux website which kept him in his comfy position on his side which really helped!
Thank you so much

Hooray!