DIY Gripe Water for Colicky Babies and Unsettled Adults, that’s better than the stuff in the plastic bottle
If you have a colicky baby or a child with tummy pains make DIY gripe water. Gripe water is a traditional remedy for cranky babies. You know the kind. They cry inconsolably and pull their knees up to their chests. New Mommas can pace the floor for hours on end, feeling helpless and exhausted with a colicky baby. Gripe water is the traditional answer.
While today’s gripe water contains preservatives and fillers that the traditional remedy didn’t have, the traditional remedy is easy to make at home, using just a few grocery store staples. The Ayurvedic remedy contains sodium bicarbonate, dill and/or fennel seed, sugar, water plus four chemical preservatives. The active ingredients are sodium bicarbonate and dill seed. The rest are filler and preservatives to make it shelf-stable and make it taste good to momma. Your baby doesn’t need six of the seven ingredients in the plastic bottle.
The homemade version is easy to make with ingredients you can pick up at the grocery store. It’s even easier if you put the ingredients into a press and seal tea bags and have it ready to go as needed. Did I mention it’s cheaper, too? Get the Press and Seal Tea Bags here.
Last summer, my new granddaughter came for a visit, with her parents. Ivy is 100% breastfed. At 6 months her stomach isn’t quite matured and she was still having bouts of colic. After a particularly sleepless night, her momma handed off Ivy in the morning so she could get a bit more sleep. I made this Gripe Water Tea in a few minutes and gave Ivy just a teaspoon. The magic was working in less than 5 minutes. The crying stopped. Her tummy settled and she was napping by the time her momma got up a few hours later.
This Gripe Water Remedy would make a lovely gift for a new momma, in the press and seal tea bags. Momma just needs to steep the teabag in a half cup of boiling water. Let it steep with a cover over it, for 15 minutes. Cool it and it’s ready to serve.
DIY Gripe Water Teabags
For those times when normal soothing and rocking doesn’t calm the baby down, you can make this DIY Gripe Water. Make it as fresh as you need it. It doesn’t have any preservatives in it like commercial gripe water, so it shouldn’t be kept in the fridge longer than 24 hours. Any kept at room temperature for more than 2 hours should be thrown out.
However, by making these in Press and Brew tea bags, for the new mom, they will be easy to make with little fussing when the baby is already fussing.
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DIY Gripe Water
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 36 tea bags 1x
- Category: Herbal Tea
Description
Make this herbal tea blend to relieve colicky babies and tired moms.
Ingredients
- ¼ cup fennel or anise seeds, lightly crushed
- ¼ cup dill seed, lightly crushed
- 2 tablespoons peppermint leaves, crushed
- 2 tablespoons chamomile blossoms, crushed
Instructions
- Place the fennel, and dill seed in a mortar and pestle and lightly crush them to release their volatile oils. You don’t want to powder them, but just break the seed to release the volatile oils.
- Pour the crushed seed into a prep bowl. Add peppermint leaves and chamomile blossoms, crushing them in your hands as you add them to the prep bowl. Mix all the ingredients in the bowl.
Fill the tea bags:
- Spoon 1 teaspoon of the mixture into a Press and Brew tea bag. Press the seal on the teabag with an iron set on cotton. Continue making tea bags until the mixture is used up.
Notes
To make gripe water tea:
- Place the teabag in a cup with a lid. The lid helps to keep the carminative volatile oils in the mug.
- Pour ½ cup of boiling water over the teabag. Cover the cup and let the teabag steep for 15 minutes.
- Remove the lid. Press the teabag with the back of a spoon to get as much herbal goodness out of the bag as possible.
- This makes a strong tea and you’ll only use a teaspoon for the baby.
Make these traditional Gripe Water tea bags for new moms
Yield 36 teabags
Ingredients:
- ¼ cup fennel or anise seeds, lightly crushed
- ¼ cup dill seed, lightly crushed
- 2 tablespoons peppermint leaves, crushed
- 2 tablespoons chamomile blossoms, crushed
Directions:
- Place the fennel, and dill seed in a mortar and pestle and lightly crush them to release their volatile oils. You don’t want to powder them, but just break the seed to release the volatile oils.
- Pour the crushed seed into a prep bowl. Add peppermint leaves and chamomile blossoms, crushing them in your hands as you add them to the prep bowl. Mix all the ingredients in the bowl.
Fill the tea bags:
- Spoon 1 teaspoon of the mixture into a Press and Brew tea bag. Press the seal on the teabag with an iron set on cotton. Continue making tea bags until the mixture is used up.
To make the gripe water tea:
(include these directions with your gift)
- Place the teabag in a cup with a lid. The lid helps to keep the carminative volatile oils in the mug.
- Pour ½ cup of boiling water over the teabag. Cover the cup and let the teabag steep for 15 minutes.
- Remove the lid. Press the teabag with the back of a spoon to get as much herbal goodness out of the bag as possible.
- This makes a strong tea and you’ll only use a teaspoon for the baby.
Yield: 4 ounces of gripe water.
Cool the tea to body temperature. For the colicky baby, drizzle ½ to 1 teaspoon in the mouth, being careful not to choke the child.
In my experience, the baby will have relief within 5 minutes. If the pain persists, a second ½ to 1 teaspoon can be given every 30 minutes.
This tea also calms gas, hiccups, and bloating in older children and adults. It is calming and relaxing to the digestive system. Since gripe water is food there is no unsafe dose. It can be offered as often as needed. For adults and older children use 1 cup of water per teabag. And offer the whole cup. The relaxing experience of drinking tea is part of the therapeutic value of this natural remedy.
Saving Gripe Water Till Later
Once the decoction is made, gripe water will keep in the fridge for a day or two. You can also freeze it in ice cube size portions. Store the ice cubes in a zip lock bag to use as needed. Each ice cube is about 1 tablespoon.
Why not make up a batch of these carminative digestive tea bags and gift them in a pretty tin for a new mom? They are safe for pregnant and nursing moms, as well as safe for infants.
Normal serving size:
½ teaspoon for newborns
1 teaspoon for infants to 6 months
1 tablespoon for toddlers to 2 years
½ cup for children under 5, honey may be added to sweeten to taste. Serve warm.
1 cup for ages 5 and up, honey may be added to sweeten to taste. Serve warm.
If colicky stomach pain continues talk to your doctor, check for food sensitivities or food allergies.
Tips:
Where to source the fennel seed, dill seed, and other herbs in this recipe
Don’t buy the herbs in the little spice bottles at the grocery store. These are beyond expensive and usually not very fresh. Some grocery store spices have been tested and found to contain heavy metals like lead and cadmium. Organic herbs are best. These can be found online at Mountain Rose Herbs, Starwest Botanicals, and Amazon. You may find them locally at an East Indian or Asian market, a bulk food store, or a health food store.
Where to buy Press and Seal teabags
Amazon carries them but they are fairly expensive at Amazon. I bought mine at Mountain Rose Herbs. The price drops with the higher the number of tea bags per order. I also use these tea bags to package herbal remedies for travel, for gifts, and to portion out remedies for family members and friends.
Do you need teabags for this recipe?
No, if you are the momma and you are making this on an as-needed basis, I’d suggest making the recipe with loose herbs and putting it in a Pint Jar. Keep a tea strainer close at hand. Then just make the amount you need using a tea strainer.
The Press and Brew tea bags are for convenience. A momma holding a crying baby often only has one hand and making tea with a teabag only requires one hand. Herbal remedies that are used are better than herbal remedies that sit in a jar in the cupboard forgotten.
How would you adapt this gripe water for older children and adults?
Honey should not be used with children under 2 unless you have intimately involved with beekeeping yourself and can vouch for the health of the bees and the food-safe nature of the honey.
Honey is not inherently bad for babies, but with industrial practices the honey available in the store has risks. On the other hand, children ages 2 and older have little risk with honey and honey provides energy, vitamins, and other nutrients that benefit humans. Go ahead and sweeten this to taste.
Other carminative herbs can be added to the mixture as well as the ones listed. Cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and other chai spices are good additions to this mixture that can promote healthy digestion and reduce cramping and pain.
How long will the Gripe Water last in the teabags?
If the gripe water is made with fresh spices the tea bags should remain potent for up to 12 months, enclosed in a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. After 9 months most infants outgrow the colicky stage. If you can still smell it, it’s still potent.
It’s totally fine to use this gripe water as a digestive aid in older children and adults as well.
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My mother always used a hard peppermint candy, crushed & dissolved in warm water. She fed it to colicky babies while the water was still warm, on an as needed basis. It always worked like a charm. Nowadays this would be considered politically incorrect because she used commercial peppermint candies, which have loads of sugar. She always chose the candies that had the strongest scent & flavor of peppermint.
Just thought I should mention that it is not safe to use honey as a sweetener until baby’s are over 1 year old due to the risk of Botulism.
Its not safe to use “raw” honey. Commercially pasteurized honey does not come with warning labels.
You might put the part about honey in bold.
My oldest daughter is now 40. I used Woodward’s original gripe water when she was an infant and it worked every time. Just a small amount, lay her on her tummy and soon her fussing was through.
So glad to find this recipe as I need it for myself now. Another malady of agine – everything I eat makes me gassy. LOL
Do you find it works for you? I am 46 and for the first time ever, I am always gassy!
I have a question. In one portion of the instructions it says to use a half a cup of boiling water per tea bag for a child and then it says to use a whole cup of boiling water per tea bag for an adult. Making sure it’s not the other way around. Also it says to only keep made up tea for 24 hours in one section but then another section says you can keep it for 3 to 4 days. Just a little confused. It’s working nicely though. Thank you for the recipe!
That’s because the baby portion you are only giving a teaspoon at a time but with the adult protion you are giving a whole cup of tea.
Your granddaughter is beautiful.. thank you for this lovely article. I try to recommend natural remedies and alternatives to my family, but they just seem to think that allopathic medicine from a prescription is the only thing that will work. The exception to that was when I calmed my granddaughters temper tantrums and her breathing problems with aromatherapy oils fro Rocky Mountain oils after having her for the night. Now my daughter-n-law swears by it and even told her Pediatrician and friends. I just can’t get it through her head that cheap oils from local stores and online don’t really contain real essential oils.
This is a great post. I used to give gripe water to my children in England from the health food shop but couldn’t find any when we moved to France. I was giving simply a brew of fennel seeds but never felt it was as effective as gripe water. I didn’t realise so much went into it. I can’t wait to start making some!