Wind

Joe10000

Hi, I'm sure there are worse problems then this around but I am looking for some advice.

We are first time parents, little fella is 4 weeks today and at the doctor visit last week everything was as expected including weight.

Our perceived problem is that he is not getting rid of enough wind after feeding.

He has gone through two short periods of a few days each of being quite unsettled and by that I mean waking himself up unexpectedly and having a whine, on a couple of occasions getting himself quite distressed but i'd imagine its at the low end of the scale. The first period apparently ended when we warmed his food a little more and the second apparently when we starting using infacol.

We have changed bottles and teats twice to alter the flow of milk but we are still not happy we have got to the bottom of it.

He is generally a very content baby and sleeps for about 20 hours a day but he still wakes himself up with what we think is wind although sometimes that turns to hunger quite quickly.

The advice we are following is to feed on demand but he can easily doze off during feeding and whether to persist with the feed sometimes is confusing.

He is currently taking about 26 ounces a day and is 9lbs from a birth weight of 6lbs 9 ounces.

I suppose after all that I have two questions, Are there any rules of thumb around wind and as he needs more milk do we increase the volume or the frequency of feeds ?

Thanks

wmpdd3

Phn is prob the best person for adbice of feeds, but 4 weeks to 13weeks can be the main time fo wind issues. Try feed him with his head as upight as is comfortable, wind after every 2 oz or so. After the winding keep him sitting up so any further wind comes up. If you have a sling a half hour in it after a feed could ensure all wind is out.

Suucee

Had the same problem and also started at 4 weeks. Tried changing the teats and bottles and tried gripe water (but this gave her a runny nappy). I came to the conclusion that she was falling asleep during the feed as she had wind and thought she was full then wake an hour or 2 later bring up her wind and look for a feed again. We got the Dr Brown bottles and they worked for us. Also when she started to fall asleep we would lie her down on her back rubbing her tummy normally made her wake up a bit and bring up the wind. We always put her on her tummy after a feed now too as this also brings up her wind but this could make baby sick. Carrying him in an upright position could help. My OH used to walk up and down the stairs with her. Our lil woman didnt really get 2 worked up in the begining with it but when it got to a stage where i seemed to be feeding her all day as she was falling asleep during the feed and waking with wind then wanting more bottle. I started to get very worn out . As i said we switched to the Dr browne bottles and worked a treat for us. More to clean but worth it. We recently switched back to normal tommee tippee bottles as she is now 17 weeks and has grown out of it.
Re incresing feeds cant help there im afraid as i had the opposite problem. As was mentioned check with your phn. I know you can get hungrier baby milk which might help.

Big Vern

Anyone on here use gripe water?? Or which brand did you use ? Looking at trying to get some on Amazon. Our 7 week old is really struggling to get wind up and every evening we have cross time, some worse than others. But the last few evenings have been really bad!! Any help appreciated!!

Joe10000

Thanks very much for the replies.

Jason Todd

We had a similar problem, but a much lower scale, what we ended up having to do was, on a 6oz bottle, wind after every 2oz and gradually worked to just winding at the halfway point and then at the end. I can be tough for a while during the dream feeds though!

My sis-in-law had a lot more trouble with her little fella who was premature. He rarely brought up wind and when he did he brought most of the milk back up too. She had to switch him to the hungry baby milk and that seemed to do the trick.

Heroditas

Ours is 9 weeks old tomorrow and still gets awful wind.
She's breast fed but gets one bottle in the afternoon (we're gradually moving over to bottles).
We use Infacol and it definitely seems to help.
However, we've just had to struggle through periods of chronic wind and a lack of sleep as a result. She definitely gets more wind from the bottle though.
Our "tactic" is to feed her for 20mins (10 if the bottle), try and wind her for a few minutes and then put her down on the changing mat, play with her for a few minutes, change the nappy and then wind her again.
Then she starts the second half of the feed before being winded again.
It just seemed to work if we dragged out the feeding process as long as possible to help her either burp or fart ... or puke!
The biggest problem is if she falls asleep immediately after the end of the feed. Invariably she wakes up a short while later (particularly if it's the last feed at night) and cries her eyes out until she's winded.

In summary: my advice would be to drag out the current feeds as long as possible so as to give your baby time to digest it. Wind them halfway and at the end of the feed and try and make sure they get a couple of burps up.
We've found that wind builds up during the day and is bad at night. If they have bad wind and are cranky then - put them on their backs and make their legs do "cycling" motions. That eases the pain and helps them get a few more burps up.

Finally: hang in there!!!! It gets easier.

MrsEd

Joe10000 wrote: »

He has gone through two short periods of a few days each of being quite unsettled and by that I mean waking himself up unexpectedly and having a whine,

He is generally a very content baby and sleeps for about 20 hours a day but he still wakes himself up with what we think is wind although sometimes that turns to hunger quite quickly.

I suppose after all that I have two questions, Are there any rules of thumb around wind and as he needs more milk do we increase the volume or the frequency of feeds ?

Thanks

I would think that if the unsettledness was after a feed then yep sounds like wind that just sticks after the feed. We just used to make sure the lil guy stayed awake after his full feed, or wind in between ounzes

Other then that sounds like you have a perfectly happy baby

Also, never increase frequency of feeds, increase volume - most tubs of baby milk have the average amt of ounzes that should be given month by month - We used that as a guide and increased ourselves if the lil guy still seemed hungry:)

Good Luck!