Burping hell

[avajohnson75]

Long story short, I am struggling to burp my baby and she is in pain and I am insane.

Short story long: From birth I have been asking the same things to everyone I know and every doctor that will spare me an ear and so far, everyone says "That's normal." Then they give me advice that shows they don't understand the problem. Google is almost as bad. Asking about the things that are causing me troubles results in Google "correcting" me into more common problems. At this point I am starting to feel really insane and as much as I need a solution, it would probably help me just as much of I could just find someone that actually understands the words coming out of my mouth. Even just to tell me that I'm wrong about it all and it is actually normal, at least then I would feel less alone.

My lovely little girl (almost 4 months) is great. She has a wonderful smile and she is very well behaved for the most part. I don't want it to sound otherwise, but I need to solve a problem and I am not grateful or happy about the problem and I am frustrated by her actions when it comes to burping.

The problem is that she will swallow a lot of air and it takes a long time to burp her. As much as an hour and a half after each meal. She will also strain and cry while burping sometimes and force out a lot of milk.

The advice I normally get it to just not burp her so much. This is really bad advice, that a lot of doctors tell me, because she will spit up a lot of food and need to be fed sooner, she will be uncomfortable from this and cry and then she will also scream for hours because of gas pains. If I was to give myself advice back in time it would be to resolve myself to never let a single burp sit in her belly (and maybe tell the doctors how dumb that is and how much stress it has caused me). Every burp I miss, we are both punished for, harshly.

Keep her upright and tilt her bed is another annoying one. This works fine for a few hours where she is happy and then the lower gas pains start. It seems to be some cruel torture method made for a little baby. Maybe if I wasn't worried about her pain this could be a good trick.

Hold her in X position. I like this advice, but I've run out. I have tried them all, even the ones that you shouldn't do. They all work great, but she has a lot of air and it takes time. My advice is to spend five minutes on the first method and decreasing amounts of time on each next method with small breaks of play time between. It seems to work best that the positions are rotated and she has time to focus on other things. It normally keeps my time under an hour, sometimes as little as half an hour. I have been told many times that anything over 5 minutes is too much, but that is clearly wrong.

Rub her belly and cycle her legs is helpful when everything else fails and the air goes lower. This is kind of cleanup advice to help fix the fallout after I miss burps.

Burp between feedings. I have mixed results with this. If she eats too little she will freak out and panic when getting burped and cry enough that she will end up gulping down air when she gets back to feeding. Too much food at once will put any gas bubbles so far down her stomach that it can take very long to get them out and cause her a lot of discomfort. Right now I'm pretty carefully managing food so that she eats about every two hours and fifteen minutes (average). When it's bad, I don't really have time to care for myself between feedings. Just burp and feed in a cycle and hope and pray the Gods of gas take pity on me sooner rather than later.

We are doing mixed bottle and breastfeeding unfortunately. I hate the formula so much. She swallows twice as much air from the bottle. I feel like those that must do formula are really handicapped as parents. It's really quite sad and I wish it wasn't like this. I've tried a lot of positions and tricks to hold the bottle "correctly" and different kinds of bottles. I think I have it down pretty well now. Inexpensive simple bottles without airflow pipes and junk are best, me and her control the flow better by breaking the seal. Upright and with the nipple full of formula, but not all the way is best. I think if there is room for improvement, it's not by much.

The problems start when she has a gas bubble in her belly and is also hungry. Then she will eat, but frantically and swallow a lot of air. This results in longer burp times and maybe not getting them all out in time for the need feeding. If I take too long burping her when she is hungry, she will be frantic and swallow a lot of air. If I notice she is eating oddly because of a gas bubble and stop her to burp her she will normally cry and then also when she returns to the bottle, if she isn't done burping, she will cry.

Many times now I will sit her down for feeding and once she realizes, she will scream like crazy until properly burped. Just having food near her mouth will send her into a panic. This looks nearly the same as the panic she can get into when she is hungry, and she can get very hungry after a burp. It's a vicious cycle where success can be razor thin, or even impossible. Sometimes she refuses to give up the bottle, but she also thrashes around while eating. I know it's because she needs to burp and also she will get more air in her because of thrashing, but if I take it away she will cry and get more air in her before returning to do the same. When that happens I know I'm out of luck.

Then there's sleeping. Another compounding problem to add to the mix. If she has a gas bubble she will sleep soundly anyway. This sleep lasts 5 to 15 minutes. Then she will wake up, look panicked and then spit up a lot all over herself and her bed. The best trick is to watch over her for a while while she is sleeping so that I can be ready and burp her IMMEDIATELY before I have to change her and wash her clothes and bed. You can imagine how much this messes up her sleeping and mine for her to fully wake up over and over for each burp maybe so long that she will get hungry again. I'll tell you that a tried baby isn't as agreeable and makes everything else a little harder, but especially getting her to actually burp. What about now, is it safe for me to rest now?

The biggest problem now is that often, normally in the evenings, she will get more and more annoyed with burping. I think she is most uncomfortable with having the gas in her and not the actual burping or spitting up. Often when I lift her she will stiffen up her entire body. I am convinced she is doing this as a way to stretch out her stomach to either because it feels better or as a way to force air out. When she is in this "mad with burps" mode she will burp and then after the burp she will flex harder and spit up. This happens right after the burp is done and if my reflexes are lightning quick I can interrupt it and she will be only slightly annoyed. If I am not quick she will scream and cry in pain as she spits up.

I've skipped a lot of my precious self care time to write this long stupid rambling post because this is the straw that breaks my back. I'm trying to calm her and I can't because it's honestly very stressful and frustrating to me when I know she is about to do it. I pick her up and she will go stiff and I know I'm in for a shity ride, she can probably pick up on this so it isn't helping her relax, but I'm at the end of my rope when it comes to this. I can't help but wonder why she is acting like this and making so many problems for us. So I'm trying to Google "crying after burping" and Google will absolutely not let me search for crying that results from burping. Have I lost it? Is my sense of time backwards? Does no one else experience this? Did I actually type in the wrong thing? Do other people mean "after" when they talk about burp problems and never say the word after and I am just unable to decipher the hidden code of "after" when everyone keeps directing me to colic and GER and giving me information about, but never the information that explains how it happens as a result of burping and not a cause. Is it just a long line of coincidences that cause her to happen to cry about some random unrelated thing right after a burp?

Help me please.

I don't know... Sounds like you know a much worse pain than me. I'm really sorry, that sounds horrible. For me, she is happy and healthy, but it takes more from me than I have. She doesn't cry that often, but it's normally because I didn't or couldn't do enough to fix it. I am very grateful this is all I have to complain about, but I still hope there is a better way.

Congratulations getting past that. You might be a stronger person than me.

It was a breastfeeding specialist, but I don't think it was a serious evaluation. I just had a few questions and one of them was "does this look normal?" It wasn't as bad then and I hadn't yet realized how many of our problems came down to burps. Now I understand more about the problem, so I need to talk with someone again. I can't blame her for missing anything at the time.

I haven't tried paced feeding, but I did try a bottle that has airflow in her mouth and I have tried taking small breaks as she feeds to slow things down. None of this was fun. I refuse to try any method that gets air in her mouth without very good reason. From what I can see and hear, she swallows what is in her mouth.

Thanks for the ideas. It's nice to have some hope that there's some fixable cause.

Rather than CMPA as me too Ed above is it possible that she could be lactose intolerant. If she was a d is getting lactose either through formula of your breast milk it would make her very windy indeed.

*mentioned above that should say!

As others have suggested, I'd get a tongue tie assessment. If it's posterior tongue tie, an expert in tongue tie would be best to diagnose.
Perhaps try different types of bottles too, it took us multiple different bottles to find one which helped my daughter not take on so much air. We always struggled to get burps up too but found tummy time was the best in the end for her. Good luck, hope you find something which helps.

Did you really mean "those that must do formula are really handicapped as parents"?

I don’t know if it’s just your style of writing or the very long post or the tiredness and worry for first time parenting but you sound almost obsessive. Babies do struggle with wind. My first was very fussy and hard to wind and I get it- it will get better. Try not to overthink everything as I did as it makes it worse. If you are seeing a number of different HCPs and they’re confident she’s ok then be reassured rather than angry.

With respect, let it slide.

@Twizbe with respect, why though? What an awful thing to say and what an awful term to use!

I've had a screaming newborn, who is lactose intolerant so I understand OP may be exhausted... but come on...

Reading the whole OP you can tell that OP is having a time of it. I suspect English is not a first language and from the context I think she was trying to say that making up formula and using formula is hard work and hats off to those parents.

Even if not, it's clear from the OP and her responses that a bum fight about breast vs bottle isn't appropriate here. Let it go.

@Twizbe I wasn't making a bun fight, quite the opposite - I FF exclusively (I had too) so for someone to insinuate that I'm handicapped for doing so, it's quite offensive. I'm all for women doing whatever they need to too fed their babies. I would never judge anyone else for how they choose to feed. Especially, not with the word used anyway.

Sorry if I've not read the full post but have you tried water? My doctor from at 3 month check up when I was unhappy about the same thing said give DD water

Not the time or place. Loads of threads on here where you can rant about word usage in regards to this.

I don't think OP meant what you think she meant and really, it's not helping.

When you go to the doctors, are you presenting it as “she spends ages needing to be burped” or “She’s in pain after feeds, spits up a lot, goes rigid and angry with the pain”?

Because reading your post I am like others wondering if there’s an allergy/tongue tie/reflux issue. But you have essentially got so damn good at burping her that you are managing to compensate a lot of the time. And you are seeing the symptom (gas) as the problem rather than what might lie behind it.

If I’m right, then the second approach might get you better help from doctors etc? Good luck.

I never winded any of my babies.
It's unheard of in many cultures.

Sounds very much like my DD. She had silent reflux, screamed all day, was a hungry baby needing feeding every 40 minutes, had to sit her up burping the whole time between feeds, all the positions. Tried slowing down her feeding to give the milk more time to go down, but she screamed more as was hungry for more milk ergo taking in my air. It was a nightmare, infacol worked for a bit, tried all the different bottles, then moved onto colief. I like to think all worked for a bit but ultimately I think time just passed and her system became more mature to deal with it. It's really really tough, sounds like you do have a lovely bond which is great considering the stress it must be causing you 💐

I appreciate the chance to clear this up. I mean to say that it's very hard to deal with formula in my personal experience. I wanted to say that I feel for those that are stuck with it. They have my respect and in a fair world, I think they would get some kind of compensation.

English is my first language, but when I am really tired and stressed I tend to shut down emotionally and it's worst with my communication. I speak in a long winded, rude, patronizing, broken and robotic way. I still don't speak "normally" when well rested, but I hope I'm good enough now that this clears up my feelings on formula. Sorry if I offended anyone.

I was going to say the same as someone above about burping babies being a very ‘british’ thing. ( and maybe other cultures)

When Ds was born, I was trying to burp him and midwives and consultants here were really confused and asked what I was doing. They don’t burp babies.

I therefore didn’t bother burping Ds at all, and he seemed fine. He would either not burp, or sometimes would just naturally burp when in the floor or when we moved him.

@avajohnson75 it's ok. That poster was just looking for something to argue over.

It was clear what your meaning was from the post.

This isn't the place.

Did you see my last comment to you about the bottles and amounts you're giving?

Infacol genuinely worked wonders for ours. I have read the studies and they are inconclusive, but it is a really hard thing to measure. I tried them on it, off it, on it again and other people commented on the difference so for us, it helped. And anything is worth a try!

I've been to the doctors for different things at different times. For most of them I have said "I am struggling to burp her for as much as an hour and a half", but I also took her to the E.R. not long ago after I connected some more dots. She was screaming for about three hours, but it passed on the way there. I explained things a lot better, but she just told me that it might be colic and sent me away.

I hope to organize my thoughts much better for the next visit and get... some tests or something?

I think you must be right that something more is going on. It's not normal to be in pain from burping, right? That's something new and I am stuck on that because I don't believe any of this is normal. I don't hear anyone else I know of saying they are burping their baby for as much as 10 hours a day. I refuse to let the next doctor shrug and say "maybe" and send me away.

But all I know for sure is the gas so I can just say that. I don't know what I can do or say, but I'll say and do something until I find a way to deal with this all.

But all I know for sure is the gas so I can just say that.

Well….. I would say that all you know for sure is that she’s in pain, screams for hours sometimes, spits up a lot, is distressed after feeds…

Your description of “in pain from burping” might be true but I don’t think that’s what’s going to get doctors to pay attention. Say she’s in digestive pain, or she’s regularly in prolonged pain after feeds… let them ask questions and come to their conclusions about what the cause of that might be.

The time it takes to burp her is a problem for you not her, really. The problem for her is the pain and distress. If she wasn’t in pain, spitting up, needing more feeds because she spit up the last one, etc, then she as a 4mo baby would not have a problem with how long it took her to expel her gas. Make sense?

(Mine was fully bf and I still regularly spent the wee small hours cycling her legs and rubbing her tummy trying to clear the gas, fwiw. Looking back, I think she had reflux, but I basically didn’t sleep at night for 18 months, because she had to be upright always.)

@Twizbe I actually wasn't looking for something to argue over, so stop making stupid, condescending assumptions. "Handicapped" is word that is well known to be offensive. I was genuinely shocked that word was being used - whether it was in the context I thought or not. It is not ok to describe something using that word. I'm surprised you are ok with that word being used, to be honest. Im sure I'm not the only person in the world to be offended by that term.

@avajohnson75 OP, I genuinely hope you find answers for your daughter. I just want to say that most things with babies are phases and whilst it's hard right now, it won't be this difficult forever. Tired and stressed are the worst combination. Be kind to yourself and in the worst moments, tell yourself over and over "this won't last forever" ♥️

Sounds horrible. I'm very sorry you had to deal with that. I feel bad complaining about such a small thing comparatively. I'm glad it all passed for you and thank you for your kind words.

Maybe, but I'm glad I could say it. Yes I saw, sorry I'm a bit behind on replying. It could be worth trying, but I think the system we have now gets the most breast milk in her and I am concerned with that.