waking from gas - should I feed?

[c_tj82]

Hello!

My daughter is a month old. Despite fighting me during the day for naps (refusing to fall asleep on her own) once I manage to get her down for bedtime (around 9 once she stops fighting me) she sleeps well at night. At the start of the night she'll wake every 2-3 hours for a feeding and immediately fall asleep on her own. She can even self-soothe when she whimpers and tosses her head at night (why can't she do that during the day instead of napping for 45 min).

But around 3-5am she starts grunting in her sleep and trying to pass gas. I try to pump her legs to help and am only sometimes successful. And then I feed and try to burp her and give her gas drops. But then she'll wake every hour from then onto morning. My question is:

- should I feed every time she wakes even though it has only been an hour?  It's the best way for me to get her to fall back asleep. She'll drink for about 10 minutes, which sounds short but has always been typical for night feeds (she feeds 15-20 during the day)

Thanks in advance!

[Erin M]

I'd probably not feed her at all of those NWs as what happens is that the continued feedings will just exacerbate the gas problem.  Instead, I might look at how to reduce the gas -- are you nursing or formula feeding (sounds as if you're nursing but I hate to assume...).  You might try another method of burping, something else to help -- with my LOs, my dh was the only one who could get them to actually burp when they were feeding at night.  If I didn't get those good burps up, it was constant waking due to discomfort. 

[c_tj82]

Thanks for responding!

Yes, I'm nursing. 

I'll try harder to burp her tonight.  OUt of curiosity, if I don't burp her when does the gas occur?  Within the hour? 

[Erin M]

I think it varies, though I'm no expert on that.  I found with mine (ds especially) that if I didn't burp well I just got lots of the up and down unsettledness at night.

Do you happen to know if you have a strong let-down or oversupply (does your milk come squirting out quickly -- does LO have to gulp to keep up with it?) -- those can cause gas as well as LOs have to gulp quickly to keep up with the flow.