Help! FF baby won't burp!

[Dalrymps]

Hey there, my ds has always been difficult to burp, was bf at first and now ff (in the process of trying to get back to bf agian but thats another story). Anyway, we give him infacol before every feed but it still takes ages to get him to burp! we burp him half way through the bottle and then at the end but it takes at about half an hour to get his final burp out and if we give up and assume he has no burps then 9 times out of 10 he'll throw up a while later. we try rubbing his chest, rubbing and patting his back, over the shoulder, sitting up, leaning back, just holds on to it for ages! Any advice???

[Camillathechicken]

does he actually need burping? some babies are windier than others.. i found holding mine , supporting their heads, but letting their bodies dangle, helped. and gentle moving them around in a figure of 8, whilst perched on my knee helped.. also, sometimes, a clue to if they have wind is a slight tinge to the upper lip...is he throwing up or posseting?

[Dalrymps]

Well, yes i think he needs burping, he often gets a bit of blue round his lips, also makes a squeaking noise which he makes when he has a trapped burp and as a rule he hardly ever throws up and the only times he seems to throw up is when he hasn't had a good burp... he seems to throw up quite a bit when he does and it often comes ot his nose too so we spend ages burping him to aviod that. He is quite a farty baby too but i don't think it all goes out the other end, hence the throwing up... It's just that lately it seems to take longer and longer to burp him.

[BeeWiseMen]

a second for the figure of 8 thing. It was the only thing that worked for dd. She'd still throw up occasionally though, probably once every two or three days. I might be a slack mother but I never really worried about it as I assumed DD would take in extra to compensate for what she had thrown up.

And she posseted almost constantly until very very recently (5mo).

how old is ds?

[Camillathechicken]

is the teat too fast flowing?

[BeeWiseMen]

by the way, what formula are you using? That can make a huge difference. And if you're moving back to bf then his digestive system might just need time to accomodate the changes. Not to mention moving from ff to bf is a massive commitment from you and you maybe need to cut yourself a bit of slack? If he's eating, growing, pooing, weeing then he's fine and the windiness will sort itself out honest.

[hatwoman]

agree that it might be worth trying different teats. or different feeding positions? my dd threw up for England - most days - the equivalent of a whole feed. it wasn't nice - but I didn;t worry. she always looked very happy afterwards

[Dalrymps]

BWM yeah we do the figure 8 thing too, does work often but not every time, seems to be random what works each time, i don't really worry that he throws up occasionally but it's just the fact it's taking longer and longer lately, don't want it to get to the stage he hardly burps at all then throws up loads (worrying about what hasn't even happened yet which is silly i know). Ds is 5 weeks old on tues... CTC - i don't think the teat is too fast, using tommy tippee closer to nature bottles with the slowest teat you can get

[Camillathechicken]

how many times is he going to the breast?

my DD was solely FF, she often used to bring back what looked like an entire feed. and then go to sleep ! and wake up ready for a bottle.

occasionaly she did the most enormous burps, where she sounded like barney off the simpsons, her whole head would ricochet with the force of them... and she;d look around like, 'who did that?' tres amusant!

[Dalrymps]

hardly at all at teh moment, i'm expressing every time he feeds (dh bottle feeding him) to get my milk back up then trying him on breast maybe once a day to see if i can get the latch right but he doesn't stay on for long cause there's hardly any milk there , gave up for 5 days and started again so just getting drops of milk out at the mo. yeah he does the throwing up then going to sleep thing too and occasionally we get the bog burps too but more often than not big comedy farts

[BeeWiseMen]

tbh, moving to faster teat seemed to help dd. changing formula to aptamil helped a lot. I honestly don't think you need to stress too much about the windiness. As long as your DS is growing, he's getting enough milk. The chucking up is just an inconvenience.

[Dalrymps]

yeah he's growing fine , don't even mind the inconvienience i just worry too much i guess!, had been thinking about changing to aptamil actually as a few people have rocommended it so maybe will do that, thanks for the advice

[hazeyjane]

Have you tried a teaspoon of cooled boiled water, I know it sounds a bit mad, but this worked really well with my dd2, who would make the same squeaky noise that you describe. I would dribble a tiny bit of water from the spoon into her mouth, she would look really shocked and then let out the most enormous belch,(my mum said it should be sugar water, but I found that just ordinary water worked). Also slow teat might make it harder for him to suck which can also make them windy.

[Dalrymps]

no i haven't tried that, you jusr use a sterilised plastic baby spoon? the squeaky noise is funny isn't it, keep thinking he sounds like a little mouse

[Mercy]

With ds, I used to lay him on his tummy on the floor for a few seconds which usually produced a burp - and a bit of posset, so use a muslin or something.

[hazeyjane]

DD2 bit more donkeyish with her squeaks
Yes, used a sterilised baby spoon.

[Dalrymps]

he he yeah i suppose it is a bit like a donkey too, thanks, gonna try it soon

[hazeyjane]

Any burps yet?

[Dalrymps]

well he has been burping but not a lot quicker i'm afraid, tried the water thing but not sure it had any effect, worth a try though, guess for now we'll just have to accept he takes ages to burp , thanks for the advice though