Any winding tips!!

[BrownEyedGirl32]

Hi there, my 3wk old DS seems to have a bit trouble parting with his wind after feeding!

Does anyone have any tips aside from the usual shoulder, patting on the back that they tell you about in the books?

Also do babies have to wind every time? He suffers from colic/trapped wind and we have him on infacol. Will no burps add to his colic problems?

I look forward to hearing your methods!

The most useful thing for me was baby massage techniques - can you find a local class? My SureStart centre ran one.

Best massage techniques I found are to run with palm of hand from left to right, around tummy button/"I love you" technique and also leg-cycling.

Oh, and a warm (not hot) bath in a tummy tub would often produce "results" (ahem).

Definitely definitely wind every time, especially if he is windy anyway. Not a chance will he settle otherwise. And it can take hours, that's the way of babies. You can gently rub their tummy in a clockwise direction (as you look at them, iykwim) which is meant to help, and also lie them on the floor or on your lap and cycle their legs, which is also more fun with a song to go with it! The other thing which seemed to help my DD was to lie like a tiger along my arm, not sure why but that was cute!

They tend to stay windy, there have been many times where I have accused DH of all sorts and it was the baby... Good luck!

I've found that stretching them helps!!! So....sit baby on your knee with both hands under their armpits whilst supporting their head with your fingers and thumbs and sort of straighten their body (like they are sitting upright and stretching!). This may take a good minute or more. Hope that describes what I mean well enough but it always used to work for mine. Also that sloshy noise in their tummies means there is wind in there (not milk) and you're not done until it's gone :)

I found holding mine upright with both their arms over my shoulder then rubbing up their backs upwards like trying to get bubbles out of wallpaper worked.

Gripe water is good for getting burps out. Rather than cycling legs, I always found that lifting both legs up a little, like you would for changing a nappy, helped. Also just lowering him so he is horizontal, holding him there for a bit, and then lifting him over the shoulder - actually I found the moving between different burp positions just as effective as any one position. Keeping him upright a lot will also help - I use my moby carrier a lot, and a burp often pops up ages after a feed in there.

I always found lying them flat and then sitting them up slowly helped.
Does that make any sense?!

DD was a very colicky baby and at three weeks was admitted to a German hospital (we lived there) for an unrelated issue.

One night whilst there she just would not settle (screaming constantly) and one of the paeds nurses who didn't speak a word of English taught me some excellent non-standard winding techniques which made a huge difference. This was in spite of me only having very basic German at that time, so it was all gestures, demonstrations and her speaking German and me picking up the words I knew. She was fab lol!

The one I liked a lot was instead of putting DD over my shoulder I would sit her upright on my knee, supporting her head from the front, hand cupped under the chin just as you would to back pat wind on the knee, with my other hand supporting the back of her head. Then you gently and slowly rock them backwards and forwards and the rocking bubbles the wind up and out. Very effective with DD.

Another, that sounds extreme but works really well, is to stand up, put the baby's back to your front with their head being supported by your boobs (bear with me, it's worth it) you then wrap your arms around their middle with your arms under theirs so they are supported but have their legs dangling, and then you sway so their legs sway side to side. This shifts wind that is trapped low down. I only did it when nothing else worked as it's a bit of a faff standing up to wind, but it really does work.

Some babies also bring their wind up in a one-r if you lie them flat for a couple of minutes and then sit them up slowly (supporting head from front and back) - as they hit upright you get the most almighty burp lol. This wasn't very effective on DD at all - but DN was best winded this way.

You must always wind - trapped wind is painful - it creased me all through pregnancy and I knew what it was. It must be horrific for a tiny dot.

Also for a really colicky baby wind at intervals throughout the feed, not just at the end. When DD was bf it was every few minutes, when ff it was every 2 ounces.

One thing I found useful was to remember how small a baby's windpipe and other passages are and not to try and force the burp too much, just enable it to surface if that makes sense. The other thing about that is that as the baby grows, the windpipe will widen and it will become easier. My baby is still windy as anything but he finds it much easier to burp now & has since 5wks, so the wind doesn't get trapped as much and cause pain.

I used all the techniques mentioned and needed different ones all the time, there wasn't a single answer (although rocking, sitting up slowly & tiger in tree were best).

Thank you do much for your advice! I have used a few of these suggestions to good effect! Although at the last feed got a wee milky projectile vomit after a burp came up!! DS was pretty relaxed about it and fell asleep straight after!! Lol!