Winding your baby What you should know
Date Added: June 20, 2008 05:22:18 AM
Your baby will take in air when feeding, either from the bottle or the breast, while feeding. If you baby isn’t winding properly, he may start to feel uncomfortable and experience pain as the wind becomes trapped either in his tummy or his intestines. As well as pain and discomfort, your baby may not be able to continue feeding properly, unless he is winded at regular intervals while feeding.
It is common for breast fed babies to not experience as much wind as the babies who are bottle fed. This is because the breast fed babies are able to be in more control over the amount of milk they drink and can go at their own pace. However, babies who are breast fed should still have winding intervals as they may be fast feeders or the mother may have fast flowing milk.
Bottle fed babies don’t have as much control over their feeding habits and the speed at which they feed. So, if you are bottle feeding your baby make sure that you keep the bottle tilted while feeding. This is to make sure that the teat on the bottle is filled with mil rather than with air. If you have any problems while bottle feeding your baby, try a smaller teat. A smaller teat will allow less milk through and may help with the amount of wind your baby has.
While feeding your baby, keep him upright or as close to upright as you can while remaining comfortable. This will make sure that air bubbles, rather than getting trapped, will naturally come up.
Your baby will more than likely want to take a break while feeding. Use this opportunity to gently begin to wind him. Lean him forward, while supporting his chin and pat or rub with your other hand on his back. Instead of forcing your baby to take a winding break, use their natural pauses to wind him. If he starts to cry because he isn’t feeding, he will begin take in more air and create more wind as a result.
Always keep a cloth handy or a towel, just in case your baby brings any milk up with the wind. This isn’t uncommon, so try not to worry if your baby seems to bring up more milk than he has drunk!
