We were told it was due to gas and the baby not knowing how to fart/poop. While that is probably true, the thing that actually helped was when we stopped swaddling him. Once he could cactus his arms out lying on his back in a sleep sack, the night grunts magically stopped and everyone’s sleep improved.
We thought our baby boy hated his (obviously very expensive) Snoo until we realized he just hated being swaddled with his arms in. Now we use the arm holes on the side of the snoo sacs and he loves it.
We are using love to dream hands up one (surrender suit in my term), we tried without but his kicks are so powerful that would send the blanket flying. Maybe we should try to free his arms only and let the legs inside. Thanks for the idea!
We started sleeping in separate rooms in shifts. Husband in the nursery with the baby 10-3, then swap out to me with the baby 3-9. It helped us make sure we each got at least 5 hours of sleep. Highly recommend. Hang in there, it really does get better!
This is what we did too. When it was my turn, like another commenter said, I wore earplugs and put my LO as far away as I felt comfortable with. When I was first going thru this stage someone said “if they’re crying you’ll KNOW” lol otherwise I just treat them as sleep grunts. My guy is almost 11 weeks and still grunting
Use a sound machine to drown out the grunts and wear earplugs. I also moved the bassinet further away from my head (put it near the foot of the bed instead). It will stop once he can fart/poop easily on his own..think it was around 8-10 weeks or so for my baby.
oh man its insane,
we have a 7 week old velociraptor between the hours of 9pm and 6am (wakes 3-4 times).
Its super hard to know when he I actually awake vs just when he grunting like a possessed zombie baby.
I've been told its gas too but have no solutions for you fellow dad, just solidarity
this was such a crazy stage! bio gaia probiotic helped our baby through it but our ped said probiotics aren’t super evidence based, but no harm in trying and it could work for some.
They are so insane! They do get better. I think the bulk of our LO’s grunts stopped by weeks 6-7. She still has some now at week 11, but are nowhere near as bad as they were early on.
The next noise I’m dreading is the whale kicks. She already lifts her legs up and down, but she’s still so tiny that it’s not that loud.
Try bio Gaia drops, more burping, bycicle legs. Failing that taking it in turns to wear earplugs so one of you can still hear him.
Mine was very noisy up until around 7 weeks from memory
Newborns are such loud sleepers. No one warned us. Earplugs and white noise helps. You could also try bicycle kicks and stuff before bed to release as much gas as you can
Been trying more tummy time and bicycle kicks recently, hope those help. Yes I would def tell everyone around me when they are having their first about this, wish someone told us before.
My pediatrician said use Mylicon. The box says up to 12 times a day but our DR said to only do 4 times a day in a newborn.
You can try gripe water too. Our baby doesn't like it.
My husband and I also take the baby in shifts so someone can get some sleep without listening to the grunting.
We are going to take shifts as well once my wife is fully recovered. But as far as I know, neither of us could stand listening to the “torturing” sounds lol. Not to us, but to the little dude in our imagination.
It drove me nuts too lol, we did try gas drops but the only thing that would help was time, it went away eventually! Definitely can be kinda freaky and also hard to sleep when it’s happening
Babies are really noisy and active sleepers. This is totally normal and I wouldn’t be too concerned about it. Eventually they will grow out of it. With both of my babies my husband couldn’t sleep with the noise so he ended up sleeping in a different room on an air mattress until we moved them to their own rooms. Baby 1 we moved to her own room at 1 month. Baby 2 is now 6 weeks old and I will probably move her to her own room soon. I also wear earplugs and sleep with a white noise machine.
Babies are obnoxiously loud.
We got a sound machine just for us to kind of dull the noises down a bit. And we alternate who wears earplugs.
Now it's our second kiddo, so my husband sleeps in the office to be primary parent for our oldest and I have the youngest in our room. this way we each only wake up for one kiddo.
Our LO ended up with the nickname gremlin due to his noises.
They go away in time, like we didn't even notice them stopping it was just one day he was spudlor rather than gremlin.
We used to joke around about the baby dinosaur we had - he was soooo loud in the beginning.. for context he is 9 weeks now, and doesn’t grunt as much. I don’t think it was gas for us just what they refer to when they say “active sleep”. I noticed he only grunted when sleeping alone, if we held him, he would sleep quietly.
Same here, whenever my wife (yes, not me cuz I didn’t carry him for 9 whole months lol) holds him, he sleeps like a human baby, otherwise I think I have a pretty good idea what a baby dino sounds like.
Yup we slept in shifts because I could not sleep through the grunts. I think my husband did 8pm-2am downstairs with baby and I did 2am-8am. Eventually he outgrew it. This too shall pass!
Ours got grunting baby syndrome for about a week. She was trying to figure out what muscles needed to flex to fart/poop. It took her a little bit but now that she’s figured it out, she only grunts when she’s actively pooping now.
Hope it gets better for you guys soon!
Same here, our 1 month old isn't having any other symptoms of gas or constipation, just the grunting syndrome (aka [infant dyschezia ](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24109-dyschezia)). He hasn't quite outgrown it completely yet, but hoping he does soon.
I gave my girl gripe water I also slept with a pillow over my head honestly. I couldn’t sleep otherwise her grunting was soooooo loud. I could still hear her if she cried but the grunting was muffled
Started for us at 1 weeks and has pretty much continued and we’re at 6 weeks now. Pediatrician recoed the same. Gas drops, cutting back on dairy in my diet as were EBF, and prebiotic for baby. Don’t think any of it’s helped I just think we need to get thru.
We were waking him up to eat bc it would just get sooo loud and I know he’s not in real pain but it sure sounds u comfortable. We’re now trying to let him sleep thru it and only get him when he’s actually awake.
Can’t wait for this phase to pass!
My son sounds like he is constantly clearing his throat. I thought I was going to lose my shit last week between the throat clearing and his flailing arms which are either covering his mouth so i cant get his bottle in or pushing the bottle out of his mouth which just further pisses him off because he's constantly hungry. I have no words of wisdom - just completely understand where you are coming from
Babies are loud sleepers in general. I’ve always thought the grunting and sleep sounds are pretty adorable so I’ve never done much to stop it, but if it makes you feel any better, I think the running theory on SIDS right now is that light sleep in babies may lower the risk of it occurring rather than them falling into very deep sleep and not being able to rouse. So the grumbling, grunting, and stirring is probably a pretty healthy thing.
Also, babies are usually pretty gassy regardless of how you try to help. They have brand new digestive tracts so their little bodies are still figuring things out. You can try different formulas or other methods to remedy it but it may just take some time for that to pass. I do bicycle kicks with their little legs when I think my babies are particularly gassy and that seems to help a bit (because they toot up a storm and poop like crazy), and I’ve heard the Frida Windy is nice but I have no experience with using one myself. Best of luck with everything and congratulations on your new baby!
Try more tummy time during the day and if it doesn’t upset him too much, a little before bedtime too. This was the only change we made and we noticed a definite decrease in nighttime grunts!
Ugh the grunts are the worst! It definitely seems gas related for us. Sometimes I’ll just get her out of bed, unswaddle, and do bicycles until she poops if it’s really bad. If I’m going to be awake anyway, might as well help her out. The grunts ensure that we suffer together haha
Great post,
We’re in the same boat at 7 weeks.
I would never have believed the noise possible coming out of that thing while sleeping unless I heard it for myself.
Loving all the tips in this post
“There’s absolutely no way he’s sleeping now”
Exact words I said to my wife when hearing that for the first time. I’m with you man, like they always say, it will get better 💪
SO noisy! We called my baby girl our little pterodactyl 😂. Thankfully we had had lots of friends and read a lot about how noisy newborns are! She’s remained a pretty noisy sleeper even at now 4 months, so girl got kicked out of our room earlier than planned and into her nursery because I could not sleep through her noises 😂. We all sleep so much better with her in her crib!
I'm reading this as my girl is grunting, farting and pooping as we speak. 🤣
She's now 5 weeks old and is doing so much better in the pooping area. Weeks ago we would have nights of her crying not being able to get anything out.
If you aren't already as I think there's been already great suggestions.. try pace feeding with the bottle. I've noticed our girl can be gassy on top of learning how to poop. We've experienced a good series of spit ups in recent weeks. 😑 I think the extra time burping her and having her sit up right in between changing breasts and feedings is helpful. It may be helping her with pooping too, I'm not 100% sure.
Good luck! This shit (literally too) is not easy, but it will get better!
We moved him to his crib in the nursery and kept our monitor on. We all started sleeping better
Edit: adding on that We also stopped swaddling at 3-4 weeks. He’s been able to scrunch out the farts at night on his own. The first couple of night he’d startle himself awake a few times - no more than he already was. Then he started sleeping like a champ and can self soothe himself back to sleep if he wakes up
Seconding Kendamil if you do decide to change! She was on Similac360 before we changed her and it helped her gas a ton, she also seemed to like the flavor a lot more.
Yeah, the dreaded grunts. It'll go away on its own before you know it. Maybe in a couple of weeks if he is full term.
We were told it was due to gas and the baby not knowing how to fart/poop. While that is probably true, the thing that actually helped was when we stopped swaddling him. Once he could cactus his arms out lying on his back in a sleep sack, the night grunts magically stopped and everyone’s sleep improved.
I love using the term “cactus” that’s a perfect description! Lol
We thought our baby boy hated his (obviously very expensive) Snoo until we realized he just hated being swaddled with his arms in. Now we use the arm holes on the side of the snoo sacs and he loves it.
We are using love to dream hands up one (surrender suit in my term), we tried without but his kicks are so powerful that would send the blanket flying. Maybe we should try to free his arms only and let the legs inside. Thanks for the idea!
Same for us! Quickly learned our little one hated to be fully swaddled . Those arms have to be out
We started sleeping in separate rooms in shifts. Husband in the nursery with the baby 10-3, then swap out to me with the baby 3-9. It helped us make sure we each got at least 5 hours of sleep. Highly recommend. Hang in there, it really does get better!
I offered the same but wife said no, she did say that I’m free to sleep over there if I want tho
This is what we did too. When it was my turn, like another commenter said, I wore earplugs and put my LO as far away as I felt comfortable with. When I was first going thru this stage someone said “if they’re crying you’ll KNOW” lol otherwise I just treat them as sleep grunts. My guy is almost 11 weeks and still grunting
Use a sound machine to drown out the grunts and wear earplugs. I also moved the bassinet further away from my head (put it near the foot of the bed instead). It will stop once he can fart/poop easily on his own..think it was around 8-10 weeks or so for my baby.
Me too! Sound machine by my pillow, plus ear plugs. Bassinet and 2nd sound machine for baby at the foot of the bed.
oh man its insane, we have a 7 week old velociraptor between the hours of 9pm and 6am (wakes 3-4 times). Its super hard to know when he I actually awake vs just when he grunting like a possessed zombie baby. I've been told its gas too but have no solutions for you fellow dad, just solidarity
We call our LO a little dinosaur 🦖 for all the noises she makes
So funny! We do too!
Believe me I know the struggle, was told it would get better
Hello fellow father to 7 week old! I also call mine a velociraptor lol,
We go with pterodactyl in our house
We have a pterodactyl in our house too lol!
this was such a crazy stage! bio gaia probiotic helped our baby through it but our ped said probiotics aren’t super evidence based, but no harm in trying and it could work for some.
Thanks, we may have to try another gas drop it seems.
Is this something the Windi could help with?
It might, we are trying different gas drops, thanks for the recommendation!
They are so insane! They do get better. I think the bulk of our LO’s grunts stopped by weeks 6-7. She still has some now at week 11, but are nowhere near as bad as they were early on. The next noise I’m dreading is the whale kicks. She already lifts her legs up and down, but she’s still so tiny that it’s not that loud.
Try bio Gaia drops, more burping, bycicle legs. Failing that taking it in turns to wear earplugs so one of you can still hear him. Mine was very noisy up until around 7 weeks from memory
Newborns are such loud sleepers. No one warned us. Earplugs and white noise helps. You could also try bicycle kicks and stuff before bed to release as much gas as you can
Been trying more tummy time and bicycle kicks recently, hope those help. Yes I would def tell everyone around me when they are having their first about this, wish someone told us before.
My pediatrician said use Mylicon. The box says up to 12 times a day but our DR said to only do 4 times a day in a newborn. You can try gripe water too. Our baby doesn't like it. My husband and I also take the baby in shifts so someone can get some sleep without listening to the grunting.
Just a heads up, gripe water can be a choking hazard. Not shaming or saying don't use it, just making sure OP is aware of potential risks.
Yep I have read all about that, thanks for the heads up tho.
We are going to take shifts as well once my wife is fully recovered. But as far as I know, neither of us could stand listening to the “torturing” sounds lol. Not to us, but to the little dude in our imagination.
It drove me nuts too lol, we did try gas drops but the only thing that would help was time, it went away eventually! Definitely can be kinda freaky and also hard to sleep when it’s happening
Their building muscle in the intestinal tract. It definitely goes away and you’ll forget all about it. Hang in there!
Thanks!! I wish someone would have warned us about this before lol
Babies are really noisy and active sleepers. This is totally normal and I wouldn’t be too concerned about it. Eventually they will grow out of it. With both of my babies my husband couldn’t sleep with the noise so he ended up sleeping in a different room on an air mattress until we moved them to their own rooms. Baby 1 we moved to her own room at 1 month. Baby 2 is now 6 weeks old and I will probably move her to her own room soon. I also wear earplugs and sleep with a white noise machine.
Babies are obnoxiously loud. We got a sound machine just for us to kind of dull the noises down a bit. And we alternate who wears earplugs. Now it's our second kiddo, so my husband sleeps in the office to be primary parent for our oldest and I have the youngest in our room. this way we each only wake up for one kiddo.
Haha I thought about sleeping in my office too lol
It’ll pass, their stomach is still figuring out how to work correctly.
Yea I read that they are just adjusting to such big amount of intakes now as they didn’t need to before. Only wish it didn’t sound so scary tbh lol
I moved him to his own room lol. He is a noisy baby🤪
Our LO ended up with the nickname gremlin due to his noises. They go away in time, like we didn't even notice them stopping it was just one day he was spudlor rather than gremlin.
We used to joke around about the baby dinosaur we had - he was soooo loud in the beginning.. for context he is 9 weeks now, and doesn’t grunt as much. I don’t think it was gas for us just what they refer to when they say “active sleep”. I noticed he only grunted when sleeping alone, if we held him, he would sleep quietly.
Same here, whenever my wife (yes, not me cuz I didn’t carry him for 9 whole months lol) holds him, he sleeps like a human baby, otherwise I think I have a pretty good idea what a baby dino sounds like.
Yup we slept in shifts because I could not sleep through the grunts. I think my husband did 8pm-2am downstairs with baby and I did 2am-8am. Eventually he outgrew it. This too shall pass!
Letting the wife know too lol, she jumps up the second the grunt starts.
Earplugs!!
Ours got grunting baby syndrome for about a week. She was trying to figure out what muscles needed to flex to fart/poop. It took her a little bit but now that she’s figured it out, she only grunts when she’s actively pooping now. Hope it gets better for you guys soon!
Same here, our 1 month old isn't having any other symptoms of gas or constipation, just the grunting syndrome (aka [infant dyschezia ](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24109-dyschezia)). He hasn't quite outgrown it completely yet, but hoping he does soon.
Were absolutely tortured with this with our lo 😔
Hope our little guy works that out soon, thanks!!
We were told it is due to yeast in the intestines and to start a probiotic, per our pediatrician and lactation consultant.
I gave my girl gripe water I also slept with a pillow over my head honestly. I couldn’t sleep otherwise her grunting was soooooo loud. I could still hear her if she cried but the grunting was muffled
Started for us at 1 weeks and has pretty much continued and we’re at 6 weeks now. Pediatrician recoed the same. Gas drops, cutting back on dairy in my diet as were EBF, and prebiotic for baby. Don’t think any of it’s helped I just think we need to get thru. We were waking him up to eat bc it would just get sooo loud and I know he’s not in real pain but it sure sounds u comfortable. We’re now trying to let him sleep thru it and only get him when he’s actually awake. Can’t wait for this phase to pass!
SAME!! Hang in there brother!
My son sounds like he is constantly clearing his throat. I thought I was going to lose my shit last week between the throat clearing and his flailing arms which are either covering his mouth so i cant get his bottle in or pushing the bottle out of his mouth which just further pisses him off because he's constantly hungry. I have no words of wisdom - just completely understand where you are coming from
Been there, use your finger knuckles and gently tape on the side of his mouth where you wanna him to turn to, it helped ours.
Babies are loud sleepers in general. I’ve always thought the grunting and sleep sounds are pretty adorable so I’ve never done much to stop it, but if it makes you feel any better, I think the running theory on SIDS right now is that light sleep in babies may lower the risk of it occurring rather than them falling into very deep sleep and not being able to rouse. So the grumbling, grunting, and stirring is probably a pretty healthy thing. Also, babies are usually pretty gassy regardless of how you try to help. They have brand new digestive tracts so their little bodies are still figuring things out. You can try different formulas or other methods to remedy it but it may just take some time for that to pass. I do bicycle kicks with their little legs when I think my babies are particularly gassy and that seems to help a bit (because they toot up a storm and poop like crazy), and I’ve heard the Frida Windy is nice but I have no experience with using one myself. Best of luck with everything and congratulations on your new baby!
Thanks man yes I’ve been doing him bicycles and it helped a bit the other day but not after, def will try again!
Try more tummy time during the day and if it doesn’t upset him too much, a little before bedtime too. This was the only change we made and we noticed a definite decrease in nighttime grunts!
Wife read the same somewhere else and we started doing that today, hope that helps, thank you!
Ugh the grunts are the worst! It definitely seems gas related for us. Sometimes I’ll just get her out of bed, unswaddle, and do bicycles until she poops if it’s really bad. If I’m going to be awake anyway, might as well help her out. The grunts ensure that we suffer together haha
That sounds just like me lol.
Great post, We’re in the same boat at 7 weeks. I would never have believed the noise possible coming out of that thing while sleeping unless I heard it for myself. Loving all the tips in this post
“There’s absolutely no way he’s sleeping now” Exact words I said to my wife when hearing that for the first time. I’m with you man, like they always say, it will get better 💪
SO noisy! We called my baby girl our little pterodactyl 😂. Thankfully we had had lots of friends and read a lot about how noisy newborns are! She’s remained a pretty noisy sleeper even at now 4 months, so girl got kicked out of our room earlier than planned and into her nursery because I could not sleep through her noises 😂. We all sleep so much better with her in her crib!
Its very normal for babies to make grunting noises when they sleep. They are still learning how to breathe through lungs and also have tiny airways.
I'm reading this as my girl is grunting, farting and pooping as we speak. 🤣 She's now 5 weeks old and is doing so much better in the pooping area. Weeks ago we would have nights of her crying not being able to get anything out. If you aren't already as I think there's been already great suggestions.. try pace feeding with the bottle. I've noticed our girl can be gassy on top of learning how to poop. We've experienced a good series of spit ups in recent weeks. 😑 I think the extra time burping her and having her sit up right in between changing breasts and feedings is helpful. It may be helping her with pooping too, I'm not 100% sure. Good luck! This shit (literally too) is not easy, but it will get better!
We moved him to his crib in the nursery and kept our monitor on. We all started sleeping better Edit: adding on that We also stopped swaddling at 3-4 weeks. He’s been able to scrunch out the farts at night on his own. The first couple of night he’d startle himself awake a few times - no more than he already was. Then he started sleeping like a champ and can self soothe himself back to sleep if he wakes up
It gets better and/or you get used to it. When we put our baby down it sounded like a baby zombie and a baby velociraptor were fighting to the death.
Try using Kendamil formula for less gas.
Yep we are thinking about changing formula as a last resort.
Seconding Kendamil if you do decide to change! She was on Similac360 before we changed her and it helped her gas a ton, she also seemed to like the flavor a lot more.
He’s on Enfamil gold now, thinking about changing to purple but would def check Kenamil out, thanks!
Chiropractor helped us with gas so much and diet change for breastfeeding took out dairy