Baby swallowing air at breast

[kateecass]

Any advice pls?? My 7 week old is swallowing air on the boob and sometimes getting herself in a right old pickle at times. Am sure it must be poor latch but midwives said she was fine when they were visiting..tho she didn't swallow air to start. She is gaining weight fine and happily goes 3 hrs in between. So must be getting plenty of milk. I take her off after a while and will usually get a huge burp out of her. If I take her off too ealry she just screams and no wind will come out then.

DS was a slow gainer and am not hugely confident at this BF lark. He had a tongue-tie tho and now realise this might have been cause.

Any tips how I can get her to get better latch? She doesn't get a huge amount of nipple in. Can't get her to open her mouth hugely wide. Just read that it (swallowing air) might be cos she is lying wonky sometimes, so will try lining her body up and see if that helps. Her poos have also gone slightly green but she has caught her brother's cold.

MIght be being a bit paranoid but want to do the best by her and don't want her being windy if can improve it.

TIA Kate

Kate, not sure what the issue is here, sorry. All human being swallow air when they eat, and that includes babies.

Are you saying she gets distressed ? Are you sure it is wind that is causing this?

I am not saying that babies never get bothered by wind, just that there's not enough info in your post to be sure this is what's happening here.

my dd2 used ti 'click' when she was tiny - which can be a sign of swallowing air and i put myself through allsorts of stress and bother trying to sort it out - before giving up and letting her get on with it (she was gaining and feeding well, etc) and she grew out of it.

if your dd is gaining well and enjoying her milk, not getting wind but burping nicely and going three hours between feeds then you're both doing a great job!

imho until/unless it becomes a problem don't stress it. pat yourself on the back for doing a great job and enjoy your baby (and son).

I was quick shocked when my bf baby needed winding after bf. Some just do take in air and need winding, same as bottle fed babies.

quite

My BF baby (aged 13 weeks) does this sometimes. Not every time but maybe a couple of feeds a day. I can hear her sucking in air but the latch is fine. I did get off to a bad start with her BF though and had a month or so of bad latch and lots of pain (for me!). No pain anymore though and I just think it's the way she is.

She is a lot more windy that my other 2 babies were though. I never really winded them (were BF), but she always burps (and farts in her sleep - you can only get away with that being cute when you are a baby !).

are you sure she doesnt have tongue tie too? my dd2 did this too, and it was the tongue tie. we got it snipped at 3 weeks, which helped, but she still takes in quite a bit of air. one of those things, i suppose. as pps have said if she's gaining well and seems happy, and not colicky, don't stress too much!

She does get distressed, which is why I want to try and sort it if I can. I can hear her swallowing air and it going into her stomach. Sometimes she will start fussing or crying and even start choking sometimes. I'll take her off, sit her up and let her burp, then she's fine and I put her back on. She tends only to swallow air at the beginning of a feed and not the end. She can also be difficult to settle at night if she has swallowed a lot of air at that feed.

That all sounds pretty normal at that age. It doesn't last forever as a stage, though -- a couple of months and you probably won't need to burp her any more. It could be worth learning how to bicycle her legs or do the "tiger in a tree" hold to help her release the wind.

She does like it when we bicycle her legs. We also push her legs up to her tummy..wonder if that is "tiger in the tree"..will google it.