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.