Once your baby starts sleeping more and has already skipped the middle of the night feeding there is still that inevitable night waking from time to time.

In the middle of the night when your baby wakes up check if the baby has leaked without moving him/her or without lifting baby from the crib. If there is no leak, stroke baby’s head for a minute to soothe them back to sleep or give a pacifier. Then leave the room and go back to bed.

This response to waking should be consistent. If baby cries 5 minutes later, try it again. If baby cries again a few minutes later there is probably a burp stuck or gas. At this point pick baby up for a minute and pat their back staying near the crib. By going to rock the baby, you just create another habit to break.

Rock baby in the morning, during the day or early evening, not in the middle of the night just for comfort because it will become a habit. Usually the gas or burp will just come up by picking your baby up.

Since there is not much you can do about gas besides gas drops and/or distraction, (the distraction in this case will be sleep) it is best to put your baby back in the crib and leave the room once more. Once your baby goes back to sleep, gas subsides for a while and will seems to disappear with the morning meal.

I always found it amazing how much gas hurts a baby, while we would assume a bowel movement would hurt more. When a baby has a BM, their face can turn red and they seem to strain like they are constipated, yet this is normal. It is tempting to give the baby an early meal knowing that this will help the gas situation. Try to stall the baby with the feeding until you are within 30-60 minutes away from the early morning feeding.

If the baby wakes at 3am, it might take until 4am or longer to get your baby back to sleep, but this will decrease with time. In the long run your baby will rarely wake during the night or at least until teething strikes. So just keep going with stroking the head and giving the pacifier no matter how tedious this seems. I am also assuming the baby is not sick with a cold or a temperature.