8 month old- gas causing excessive night wakings

[mommykay410]

My LO will be 8 months this week and has been on solids since she turned 6 months.  For the past month or so she has been waking up with gas shortly after going to bed for the night.  She usually wakes between 1-2 hours after falling asleep and needs to burp.  Sometimes I can get away with just burping her, other times I give her gas drops if that doesn't seem to help.  At first I thought she was waking up because she would fall asleep while nursing and not get a good burp out before I laid her down, but lately I have been trying to put her down with a shorter A to bed so she isn't falling asleep while nursing and is able to burp good before laying down.  I can't really seem to find a pattern in the foods that she's eating that could be culprits.  She has eaten the same foods on nights that she slept 10-11 hours straight and on nights that she's woken 4-5 times.  I thought maybe I am giving her too much at one meal, so tonight I gave her a smaller amount for dinner.  I also tried to feed her a little earlier so that she's not eating as close to bedtime in hopes that she'd have a little more time to digest before bed.  And I gave her gas drops before I nursed her before bed too.  Apparently my efforts didn't help because she was up 3 times within the next hour which I had to burp her and then pat her back to sleep.  Any thoughts on what could be causing this issue or what I could do to help relieve or avoid the gas at bedtime? 

Here is what a typical day looks like and a list of the foods she currently eats:
6:30/7am wakeup, nurse (7:15/7:30)
8:30 breakfast (~3-4 oz fruit and sometimes yogurt)
10-11 nap
11:30 nurse
12:30pm lunch (~3 oz veggie or veggie/fruit combo)
1:30 top up nurse one side
2/2:30-3/3:30 nap
3:30 nurse
4:30/5 dinner (~4 oz veggie or veggie/fruit combo)
6:30 nurse then bed

All of her food is homemade.  She eats sweet potatoes, butternut squash, carrots (not often because they constipate her), banana (same as carrots), apples, pears, prunes, plain yogurt, and just introduced mango yesterday. 

[creations]

No magic solutions I'm afraid but a couple of things you can try to see if it helps:
- I agree with moving dinner earlier, could be earlier still. Maybe around 4pm to give her a good couple of hours before BT
- Slight pressure on her tummy when you burp her
- Finger foods for dinner rather than purée if she is taking puree then.  Depending when/how you've made the puree there could be more air in it (I'm thinking of when I whizz foods they get very aerated)
- maybe something more carbsy for dinner rather than veg/fruit, a piece of toast perhaps (not whole grain for young LOs)
- maybe change up her diet to include some protein and carbs so that she is not taking quite a much veg/fruit, I know they are healthy but she may have less wind with a more balance solids diet.  It's fine to have fish and meat in her diet at this age so long as there are no known allergies in the family
- keep a food diary for yourself, it may have nothing to do with what she is taking in way of solids but instead be linked to what you are eating and she is getting from the breast milk.  You might see a pattern there.

carrots (not often because they constipate her)

Mine was the same. It's super useful to know. I was able to naturally manage DS's poo by giving carrots if he was a bit loose and prunes if he was a bit stiff, or to make sure he had a balance of the two in a more general way.
Bananas can be more constipating if they are green/yellow and more laxative if they are darker/brown.  You might try riper and see how they go.

[mommykay410]

Thank you for the suggestions.  I will try to move dinner earlier tonight and see if that helps any.  I haven't given her any finger foods yet, she has only gotten purees so far.  She isn't fond of texture in her food...I tried to give her brown rice mixed with veggie the other day and she coughed and choked when she got a piece.  I will try to introduce some meat this week and see how that goes.  Hopefully I'm able to blend it up fine enough for her.  I'm not sure if it would be anything in my diet that would be causing it since I generally eat the same foods and this gas problem only really started recently.  But I can log it and see.  She was up 6 times last night, not sleeping for more than 3 hours at a time and most times less than an hour, so I need to get this under control quick!

[creations]

Oh dear that sounds like a rough night.
Are you sure it's wind? Could she be teething perhaps?
Any motor developments? Crawling?
A reaction to one of the foods?  I know you said you couldn't see a pattern, I would keep checking.  My LO has no allergies but certain foods you would think would be fine he couldn't take: rice, yoghurt, ripe pear, in our case it caused a reflux flare up.  LOs can have reactions to just about anything and whilst not life threatening it can cause enough discomfort to want to avoid those foods for a little while.

WRT to texture there are some LOs who do not like 'bits' so don't do well with textures such as rice, cous cous etc, and also aren't happy with the 'lumps' stage of the traditional weaning method of puree, then lumpy foods.  They do better to move directly on to finger foods, large 'fingers' (adult size) or wedges of food which they can hold in a fist grasp and bring to their own mouth to gum and suck on the end.  Whilst this might seem more scary for parents in the beginning with the very large food they have a better chance of manipulating it both inside and outside the mouth. Larger pieces are easier to hold and also easier to bring back to the front of the mouth (with the gag reflex) if they go too far back.
It is suggested here (UK) to introduce finger foods at 6 months, even when following a more traditional puree route of weaning (the puree stage doesn't go on for more than a few weeks before becoming mashed and lumpy foods, with finger foods introduced at 6 months or soon after).  With finger foods they learn to move the food around their mouth, it's also very good for language development and fine motor skills.  Many people have the idea that babies need pureed food for a long time but this is mostly left-over idea from when solids were introduced at a much younger age which is no longer advised.

For future reference LOs this young shouldn't really be having brown rice or whole grains. It is difficult to digest and can fill their tummies too quickly, not allowing them to take in the calories they need from solids/milk (from being too full).

[mommykay410]

Gas is definitely an issue, she was burping an awful lot today too which is not normal, but teething could also be a factor I suppose.  Her second bottom tooth came in the week before last so I thought we'd be good for a little while.  She is not crawling yet, but she is constantly rolling over to her belly in her sleep or when she's trying to fall asleep.  She just started to push up on her hands a couple days ago. 

I keep looking back at my log to see if I can find anything with what she's eating but nothing seems to make sense.  I thought maybe squash and then thought maybe pears, but both of those she was also eating at the same times on nights when she slept all night as she is now. 
What finger foods would you suggest I try first?  From what I read on various sites they say cooked carrots or pieces of banana but I hate to give her those because they both constipate her. 

[creations]

What finger foods would you suggest I try first?

Really there is no limit to the foods other than the normal things one avoids with young children (no honey, no sugar, no whole nuts (or other small round objects due to choke hazard), no raw fish, low salt, for girls a limit of no more than 2 portions of oily fish per week. Hmm..I think that's it off the top of my head).  You can just offer her a piece of whatever you are having, the great thing about this is fewer different meals to prepare, just hand her a bit of whatever you are having. The other positive aspect is that she has already been exposed to the flavours of your diet through your breast milk so whatever you've had should in theory be fine for her
However, if you feel you are more cautious than this then how about start with some of the foods she has already had?
large wedges of:
sweet potato - steam or oven bake, oven baked is easier to hold, the outside is dried the inside super soft
butternut squash
apple and pear - can also be lightly steamed (no time at all for pear, watch it or it will fall apart) or oven baked in wedges

fresh mango is fine in a large wedge, as it is slippery I suggest cutting it in crescent shapes or zig zag (like a crinkle cut chip) as the curve or zig zag gives an anchor point which is easier to fist grip.

pasta if you want to introduce carbs, again the shaped stuff helps, something like spiralli or twists is easier to grip than penne (spaghetti can be hilarious but also frustrating for some LOs). I would probably offer it 'dry' initially as this is easier to pick up, but you can also put some sauce on her plate for a dip if you wanted.

You will quite quickly get used to how to prepare the finger foods for your LO.  Bare in mind some LOs never have purees, they don't need teeth to eat all sorts of foods but will chomp away with their (very hard) gums, even on hunks of meat.

[mommykay410]

I just got some more sweet potatoes at market this weekend, so I think I will try some wedges of that first.  I don't think I'm quite ready to give her whatever we eat for dinner, plus my husband and I aren't big veggie eaters, so I would have to make something separate for her anyways.  Also my husband gets home late so we generally don't eat dinner until after she goes to sleep.  Thanks for the tips!  Hopefully that will help some! 

[creations]

good luck
I hope you find either the cause or a solution for the wind!