Is baby wind a bit of a myth?

[BumNugget]

My second baby is 3 weeks old. She has her fussy moments, usually in the afternoon/evening, but on the whole, all is going relatively well. She's breastfed.

As with my first baby, my in laws are obsessed with the idea that babies get bad wind. They go on about it every time she makes the slightest noise or pulls a face. She's passed around, jiggled, patted, and I find it pretty irritating as she'd settle better with a cuddle and feed.

I agree that wind does exist, in that my baby trumps and burps like any other human being, but I just don't feel that this causes her any discomfort. I am 99% sure that her fussiness is due to hunger/frustrations at slow let down or low supply in the evenings/tiredness/overstimulation. When the ILs visit and baby is repetitively burped and winded, it makes no difference whatsoever to her behaviour, compared to when it's just me and baby and I don't bother.

Does anyone know of any actual research or evidence to either back me up when I politely tell my ILs to leave the baby alone, or convince me that I should be winding my baby?

I tend to agree. I never paid particular attention to burping or winding mine - didn’t seem to make a jot of difference, or result in burps full stop!

My dd is 14 weeks, ebf, and struggles with wind. If we dont wind her properly, she gets pain, discomfort, and ends up being sick. If I wind her properly, she has a good burp and shes fine. So I dont think it's a myth, just different babies with different needs.

I agree with @katmarie it depends on the baby. My 5 week old sometimes gets bad wind and will throw up if put down with it. But alot of the time I think its hunger and frustration with not getting enough milk from the breast.
I'm starting to get the hang of figuring out which one is causing his irritation.

I don't think ot's a myth as such , but it seems that people of that generation find it a Big Thing. Perhaps it was talked about a lot in parenting classes/books when they hqd their children?

I think it's generally more of an issue for bottle-fed babies, as they swallow more air when they drink.

My 3 were all breastfed & hardly ever had wind. They would sometimes just burp or break wind but nothing much.

Slightly differing ideas then. I love my MIL to bits but I'm having to politely hold my tongue, smiled and nod a lot as the issue of wind comes up so often...😬 I just want my baby back so I can feed her and calm her, rather than have her pointlessly patted on the back for ages 🤦🏻‍♀️

Apparently breastfed babies will be less windy but mine was ebf and was absolutely tortured with it. And we were tortured trying to get it up. As PPs said every baby is different!

Both of mine were/ are exclusively breastfed. DD1 wasn't very windy. DD2 has much more wind and I do think it was uncomfortable for her when she was tiny so we did try to wind her after a feed. However, she's 6 months now, perfectly happy and healthy, but MIL is always commenting on it. If she burps/ farts/ cries/ does anything, MIL says "I do think she has wind" in a slightly dramatic way as if it's a terrible thing. Baby seems fine and brings it up herself, so don't think it's uncomfortable for her. MIL is a bit funny about breastfeeding though, so not sure if it's some sort of backhanded comment about that .

Currently breastfeeding my dd who suffers terribly with wind. As soon as she wiggles a bit on the breast I know I need to take her off and burp her or it will just get worse.

I think wind exists, but wind as a catch-all for any noise a baby makes in its first few months is bollocks.

Funny face? - "ah, that'll be wind"
Grunts? - "oh he's got such terrible wind"
Pulls legs up? - "look you can tell that's wind"
Wakes up? - "wind is really bothering him poor wee soul"
Has slight whitish tinge to face around mouth? - "wind"
Cries? - "wind"
Blinks? - "wind"
Does anything other than lie still gurgling blissfully at the ceiling? - "wind"

Sometimes babies do just wiggle/fart/grump/fidget/wake, because they're getting used to bodies and digestive systems and it's weird for them.

(Once they get a bit older it's replaced with "oh he's been teething for MONTHS, he just hasn't got any teeth through yet.")

My first is ebf but has never been able to deal with his wind. Even when he was in SCBU they said how hard he is to wind, even though it gives him great discomfort. He often brings up a whole feed because his existing wind hasn't come up (not for want of trying). Sometimes you can't tell from his cry whether he's hungry or windy until he lets out a painful high-pitched scream (not a cry, an actual scream). It's horrible and so hard to do anything about. Finally a huge burp will emerge and he'll be all smiles immediately.

I tend to agree with you too, but whenever I've tentatively suggested this to anyone in real life they've looked at me like I've gone completely mad.

Also agree with the PP who said that after a certain age "teething" becomes the catch all diagnosis, and I think it gets the blame far too often.

On the other hand, personally I think that overstimulation/overtiredness is more of an issue for young babies than many people realise. Whereas my parents and in laws seem to take the opposite view and spent a lot of time singing at my DC when they were tiny, and dangling toys in their faces, because they thought they were "bored". Who really knows I guess!