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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

Winding baby - any special tricks?

44 replies

ScaredOfEverything · 05/01/2009 10:26

Hello everyone
I am a new mum. DD is BF well but gets quite windy and I seem to be quite inept at helping her out. Anyone have any special tricks they'd share?
Thank you very much.

OP posts:
laundrylover · 05/01/2009 10:30

Try her on your knee, face down with your knees pressing into her belly. Then rub or pat her back really quite hard and see if you can get a burp that way!

Good luck.

Aitch · 05/01/2009 10:33

less rubbing, imo, more side to side movement. cuddle the baby in your lap facing out, and then move from side to side, patting occasionally. think of burps like they're bubbles in a bendy tube, you've got to get them round the obstacle course before they get up.

plus you can MN while doing my method.

Aitch · 05/01/2009 10:34

dd2 is nearly out of newborn stuff now... lol. am v excited at prospect of buying some 0-3 babygros.

tiktok · 05/01/2009 10:38

Hi, Scared.

What makes you think dd is windy?

Neeerly3 · 05/01/2009 10:41

my windy newborn was best burped over left shoulder - shoulder would press into his little tum, while I slowly but firmly rubbed his back. I never patted, just rubbed, and if over the shoulder didn't work, I would sit him on my knee, hand cupping his head gently round his neck and kind of stretch him out so his innards were in a straight line, burp usually popped out then.

laundrylover · 05/01/2009 10:44

Aitch - are you still bfing too?

Good to hear she's growing out of those teeny things.

Aitch · 05/01/2009 10:46

yup, it's still a struggle though. dd slept for 13 hours last night and i woke up with full boobs for the first time ever, so she's fed brilliantly this morning and is back down for a nap. this must be how the other half lives...

laundrylover · 05/01/2009 10:48

She obviously has made a New Year's Resolution...let's hope she keeps it up!

Divineintervention · 05/01/2009 10:48

I do the sit and stretch method too.. Have baby facing you on your knee and then lift unitl legs, hopefully, stretch down and then sit him down again (quite low like a little crunch) and repeat. Another is the yoga hold where baby is horizontal facing away frm you with one arm through his legs (holding tummy and chest) and the other supporting his head with arm behind you arm and swing gentally.... this can help to relax baby before winding agin.

Divineintervention · 05/01/2009 10:49

Then learn how to spell , where is my brain perhaps I have passed that!!

Original poster
ScaredOfEverything · 05/01/2009 12:35

these are some great tips thank you! i will try the one with the legs

am pretty sure she is a bit windy sometimes as she kind of strains and pushes her legs and arms out. also has a slight blue tinge to top lip whcih midwife told me is a sign.

thank you all again for taking the time

OP posts:
tiktok · 05/01/2009 12:55

Scared - blue tinge to the lip is a crazy myth. How would air in the stomach change the colour of the skin above the lip? Babies' skin is naturally slightly translucent and may look blueish at anytime.

Straining and pushing arms and legs out is normal baby behaviour.

She may have wind, for all I know We all of us have wind in our stomachs - it's not a vacuum in there. One option is to do nothing except the routine care and cuddling and feeding you do anyway - most babies will burp or fart just fine if they need to, without the different movements you hear about. None of these will harm her, obv, so if you like doing them and think they're helpful, go ahead

tiktok · 05/01/2009 12:55

Sorry - don't mean to be scathing to you about the blue tinge. I do mean to be scathing to your midwife who should know better

laundrylover · 05/01/2009 14:05

I've never heard the one about the blue tinge and thought I'd heard 'em all by now!

TikTok, you're right of course. DD1 got winded in every concievable way to produce a burp...DD2 just got bfed and dumped and never complained. It is nice to feel like you are helping get that wind out though...have been patting some whoppers out of my nephew over Christmas!!

lou031205 · 05/01/2009 14:15

I used to work on a neonatal unit, and the babies definitely tended to get a greyish-blue tinge around the mouth when they had wind. As did my girls. Not sure of the physiology of it, but it isn't a myth in my experience.

tiktok · 05/01/2009 14:43

Oh dear....babies have wind a lot. They also may have translucent skin. This does not mean one is a sign of the other. It's biologically totally implausible, not to say impossible. To say there is a link is to credit wind with a colour-inducing property elsewhere in the body.

Total myth.

ponygirl17 · 05/01/2009 15:00

Takes as long to wind 'em sometimes as to feed them , just keep going until you get up as much up as poss. Dd1 stayed in a rocking swing thingy for the 1st four months of her life, and had to sometimes sleep in a car seat when I was desperate at night.

Babies cannot burp if they are lying down ,so do not just leave her to get on with it if she cries when you put her down, it may be wind, or of course she may just want you!

Tiktok - I have heard about the blue tinge thingy, I do not think it is fair for you to condemn something so harshly just because you do not know about it!

ponygirl17 · 05/01/2009 15:02

Btw my 4 dcs never strained or pushed their arms out, they just screamed!!

tiktok · 05/01/2009 15:19

ponygirl, of course I will speak out against something that is not possible, that there is no decent evidence for, and which misleads people so unhelpfully....it's not hurting anyone's feelings, is it?

As a breastfeeding counsellor I speak to mothers who feel they have to get 'enough' wind up (how do you measure it??? A burp-o-meter?) and they're looking at this coloured tinge and seeing it and thinking there must be wind there.

Or the baby is unhappy and unsettled, and the diagnosis is not 'the baby needs a cuddle/a feed/comfort' but 'wind' because of the coloured tinge...and cue patting and rocking and all the rest of it.

It's bollocks

Asking for the evidence and challenging the notions is not like telling kids that it's not really the tooth fairy that leaves the money under the pillow. There is, by the way, about as much evidence for 'blue tinge equals wind' as there is for the tooth fairy, and it's about equally biologically credible.

lou031205 · 05/01/2009 15:34

I'm not fussed, tbh, tiktok, but anecdote is not necessarily false, and I have seen many babies with wind miraculously lose that tinge after a satisfying burp. You are entitled to refute it. But many mothers have found it to be so. Personally, I wouldn't be winding my baby if they aren't upset, blue tinge or not.

tiktok · 05/01/2009 15:45

lou - you're a nurse, I take it, so you will be aware of basic science, I'm sure, and that the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'

Let me have your ideas on how wind colours the skin around the mouth....

MrsSeanBean · 05/01/2009 15:46

Persistence.

Neeerly3 · 05/01/2009 16:17

well my windy DS would get the blue lip during a feed, which would miraculously vanish when he let out a corker of a burp......who knows, coincidence?

tiktok · 05/01/2009 16:24

There's another thing - is it blue lips, grey tinge, blue, grey skin above the lip, or under the chin? What are we looking for? The myth has different guises

Blue lips are a sign of cyanosis - lack of oxygen. This could be serious.

If a baby shows these signs during feeding, or indeed at any other time, I'd be very worried.

If blue lips happen in a baby who is clearly well, then I'd blame a trick of the light

lou031205 · 05/01/2009 16:27

I am not here to argue with anyone. I am simply stating that I have seen what the OP described. I don't care if the skin goes blue, green or polkadot. If a baby has wind and you don't deal with it you will soon find out whether or not the skin around the mouth changes colour.