When I was pregnant I was a companies very dream. If someone said you should have this, that or the other for your baby then I was more than likely to have purchased it (As you may have noticed with my extensive baby reviews). Looking back, I wasted a fair bit of money (though I won't admit this to my husband who will undoubtedly say "I told you so"). I even went as far as stocking up the medicine cabinet with a few bits too and Woodwards Gripe Water was one that was in there.

Woodward's Gripe Water is available from pretty much every supermarket or chemist and is relatively cheap. It is around £2.00 for a 100ml bottle. it comes in a little box which looks quite dated with a happy baby on the front and Wardwood's and the name of the product. This gripe water is basically to rid your child of any wind they may have and gripe pains. It does say that this should not be used on babies that are less than one month old so I would stick with this advice.

My daughter was a baby who liked to hold on to her win. Even the midwives commented on how long it would take to bring up her wind when we stayed the night in hospital after she was born. My daughter didn't suffer terribly from gripe pains and wind but there was the odd occassion when she did and the first time was when she was around 6 weeks old. No amount of winding would relieve her of the wind she was holding on to (I am sure she was controlling it - she is a controlling little madam now! And very stubborn too!) So I suggested to my husband that maybe we should try the gripe water and see if that helped. So we did. Wow. I wish we hadn't!

When I opened the bottle, it gave off a really horrible smell, almost like something you would clean the toilet with. And I am really not joking and just the smell had me having second thoughts about giving any of this stuff to my daughter. It had a smell that left me wondering if it was actually toxic! I put a small amount on a spoon and whilst my husband was holding our daughter, gave her some in her poor unsuspecting open mouth. As soon as the liquid hit her mouth she screamed a scream louder than I had ever heard before. She started spluttering on it and the gripe water was pouring out of her mouth rather than going down her throat. It was not the nicest of experiences and not one I was going to persist with. It did a good while to calm her back down and a good few weeks for her to trust Mummy with a spoon again!

I threw this out. It was useless as it just distressed my daughter. In the end we did find Infacol which my daughter was fine with and in my opinion is a whole lot better. I just cannot recommend Woodward's Gripe Water.