Is your baby suddenly crying inconsolably in sleep or vomit everything just after a meal? Does he loose appetite and don’t you get any clue? There is a high chance that your newborn baby has a gas problem.
In recent years, gas is a common problem for us. We feel very uncomfortable when the gas bubble finds its way to come out. Your child may occasionally rattle up or down due to gases. However, don’t be so sure without an official diagnosis. You can often find gassy baby at night.
I am sharing the common symptoms and causes of a bloated stomach of a newborn baby. Knowing the things will help you to calm in a difficult situation, especially at night. I will give the new baby gas problem home remedy of windy tummy.
You have a gassy baby
Newborn can’t talk, so he can’t say how he feels. If it’s your first baby, it’s very confusing for you to understand. You can quickly forget the memory if your baby is older than a year. Therefore, this is often very challenging.
Tummy gas can start from the beginning of his days in the world. Your baby might have the issue at any stage of life. But the gas problem becomes severe at the age of 1 month to 3 months. After three months, your baby’s body becomes ready to take more challenges.
As I have mentioned, it is difficult to know the exact reason for your newborn’s discomfort when he doesn’t say what he is facing. You must be aware of the general signs of baby gas.
- Your baby was calm. Suddenly, his face becomes red which stays even for hours
- Your baby is crying out very loud while feeding and more often at night. Maybe he cries so loud that your neighbors may wake up.
- He might be twisting his body after feeding
- Often your baby tries to pull his legs up to his gut
These are the primary sign of a gassy baby. Nevertheless, there are some sings which indicate closeness to the gaseous sings. These symptoms could be like as follows-
Hiccups:
Hiccup often name burping, is a general process to pull gas out from the body. It is general advice to burp your baby just after feeding. If your baby hiccups continuously, it indicates a lot more gas entrapped in his belly. However, if he doesn’t stop crying or relax after few burps, there might be something different. It indicates that your baby may have constipation, GERD or colic. Often if the baby is afraid of something, he might have multiple hiccups.
Multiple Spitting:
It is very common that your baby spits multiple times in the day and mostly after feeding. Hiccups often start from spitting. But multiple spitting can be due to the particles of the formula if your baby is not the breastfeeding. Often gas causes by the formula particle.
Nevertheless, in winter, if your baby is spitting very much that a piece of heavy cloth might wet within a few minutes. He has hunger but doesn’t want to take food or put it in the mouth. It’s possible that he has a throat infection.
Inflating:
Gas might trap inside the gut and wants to blow from a body orifice with a fury. It’s like the bubble inside a Champagne bottle under the cork. It slows down or stops the secretion of digestive fluid.
A flappy belly could be the sign of an inflating gut where gas accumulates by trapping in the intestine. This high pressure can cause discomfort and awkwardness in the abdomen. Often the immature baby can’t digest food properly. The baby can also swallow a large amount of air. Constipation also increases the entrapping of swallowed air and produces bio gas from the ingested food.
Bombast (Flatulence):
It’s entirely natural that your baby passes gas almost 20 times a day on average. There are many ways to enter or produce the gas inside the belly. If your baby is breastfeeding, gas can readily penetrate inside his stomach during feeding.
If you feed formula to your baby, it possible at night you put the feeder in his mouth and sleep. He completes the feed and continues sucking the nipple. This sucking is one of the main reason to enter gas inside the baby stomach. Around 60-80% of gas in the human stomach enters by swallowing air.
Another reason for gas is to produce biogas by bacteria and fungi from the food waste inside the body. A constipated baby produce more gas than a baby has a regular bowel movement.
More gaseous expel with different smell indicates there might be something different than regular gas pain. You might ask your physician for excessive flatulence for your newborn.
Fussiness
Babies cry out to make us understand that he needs something. Often they have cried out to inform us that they need food, become wetted, feeling alone or sometimes discomfort for the intestinal gas.
Not scientifically confirmed, there is a semantic method for babies called Dustan Baby Language. This method tells us that if a baby cries which sounds like “Eh” means gas entrapped in the stomach and need hiccups. Moreover, if the sound is like “Erich” means gas entrapped in the small intestine. However, this could be helpful for some parents.
As a mother, I know my sons cries very harsh and loud if they have gut pain or discomfort. Again, if the gas entraps inside the intestine, your baby may become reddish, pull his legs towards the belly and twisting his body after feeding.
If the baby cries three or more hours in a single day, for a consecutive three days, there is a higher possibility that he is colic.
Insomnia
Babies have a routine for sleeping. At various age, babies sleep different hours which are essential for their growth. The following chart is an ideal routine for the baby sleep.
| Age | Sleeping Hours |
| Newborn Up to 6 months | 16-20 hours |
| 6 month to 1 Year | 12-16 hours |
Distress impacts the baby’s sleeping schedule. Inappropriate sleeping can cause a baby full of gas.
Home Diagnosis of Gassy Baby: An effective finding method
For years the local folk uses a technique to diagnose the gas in the stomach of a baby. This method is simple and effective. If you find the signs and symptoms of a gassy baby, you can try it to understand the gas problem through a primary diagnosis.
Put your left hand on the belly of your baby. Grab the thumb, ring finger and pinky of the right hand together and free the middle and index finger. Hit over the left hand by middle and index finger jointly three to four times. If the sounds are like Dhop Dhop, definitely there is gas. However, if the sound is like “Pit Pit” or no sound, it indicates there is no gas that causes the problem to your baby.
Why My Baby Is So Gassy?
The gas inside the stomach is a natural process. Your baby can expel gas about 20 times a day without any discomfort. Gas flows to the opposite side of the gastric secretion. When gas trapped inside the abdomen, it wants to get out from there anyway. That causes painful gut for your baby.
>Improper feeding Method
Feeding method is crucial to creating gas in the stomach. If the nipple of the feeder supply a large amount quickly or the mother has over milk production, the baby is guzzling which may cause gas.
Due to having a tiny hole in the nipple of feeder for a formula fed baby, he has a chance to swallow more air to cause gas pain.
Sometimes, the baby continues to suck the nipple for a while after finishing the formula in sleep when only air enters inside him.
- Quick Feeding
- Slow Feeding
- Sucking empty nipple
>Continuous crying
Crying itself is not a prominent cause of gas creation. However, if your baby is gassy and cries continuously, there is a possibility to degrade the situation by swallowing more gas.
>Juvenile digestion
It is very crucial if the baby has an immature digestive system. The gut movement is not proper in the juvenile system. Therefore, there is no control for peristalsis and hold time for food in the specific part of stomach and intestine. Therefore, the local enzymes don’t get precise time to digest the food.
As a result, the gas produces by biochemical reactions. This gas often produces bad smell while coming out. Gas may also be a sign of constipation.
>Allergy and sensitivity to food
If your baby takes allergic foods, he can be gassy. If he has sensitivity for a particular food element and swallows it, he must be gassy.
Maternal food intake is the essential factor for the gassy baby if he is on breastfeeding. Some research shows, if a mother takes gas producing food like cow milk, cabbage, onion, and cauliflower etc. the baby often show gassy bowel.
If you’ve any doubt about your baby’s food intolerance, talk to your pediatrician. Small food restriction can give a great result.
>Excess feeding
Often new mom thinks that her baby is not talking food properly. Therefore, they try to feed the baby too much. Overfeeding always causes gas in the gut and discomfort. Gas produce when lactose breaks down inside the body. Excess lactose breakdown causes excess gas production.
If you think, your baby is not taking food properly, ask your doctor without forcing him excess food. Sometimes the baby has other problem like swore throat, or infection which restricts food intake.
>Deficient in Enzyme
Often there is a missing concept that lactose intolerance can produce gas in your baby. If there is a lack in the production of the lactase enzyme, digest lactose is not possible for the baby. For a newborn, it is not possible because breast milk lactose itself increase absorption. Before two years lactose intolerance cannot come out unless your baby is colic.
>Formula or New Feeding
After certain months, when you introduce new food to your baby, you will find the baby is gassy for a few days. Excess gas is because of the change in the food habit. The body is trying to adopt the digestion. Therefore, some mixed body biochemical functions cause over gas production.
>Imbalance in Gut Microbes
The gut is a suitable place for billions of microbial growth. The beneficial probiotics work together with body enzyme for proper digestion. If there is a significant change in the number of bacteria, the digestion balance breaks down.
Often this happens when your baby takes antibiotics for treatment. Massive killing by antibiotics cause imbalance in gut microbiology. As a result, the digestion is not proper. Your baby becomes gassy.
New Born Gas Problem Home Remedy
The gas in a baby is very natural, but sometimes it becomes an issue when your gassy baby continues crying at night or in a day. You can try some trick from below as a quick remedy for a newborn baby.
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Making Hiccups
Making hiccup is an outstanding technique to expel gas and stop vomiting of a newborn. This method is very effective up to six months of age.
For a newborn up to three months, the technique is different from the three to six months baby. In the first case, hold your baby on your shoulder after feeding. Press him with your shoulder and make two to five ups and downs. He will hiccup once or more which indicates he expels gases.
For the second instance, just after eating, put your baby on your shoulder or lay him on his belly on your thigh. Rub his back with small pressure for few times. You will see, you baby hiccups.
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Cycling leg
Cycling is very popular and most common technique to reduce gas from your baby’s gut. After feeding, you have to lay your baby on his back. Hold two legs from cub muscle. Start bending the legs one over the other and create a small pressure on his belly.
Continue the process for 10-15 times. You will find that your baby is expelling gas from his stomach. This method is practical for a newborn.
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Belly Message
Belly message is another famous technique to reduce gas from the stomach. You can easily message the baby abdomen with giving a mild pressure. This method often helps to expel gas.
Some expert nurses give a message called I LOVE YOU. They draw I symbol using three fingers on belly with a small pressure. Then they pull L and U. After a repetition, you will find your baby expelling gases.
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Tummy Time
If your baby is comfortable on his tummy, this is an effective method. It is not suitable for a baby below three months.
Leave your baby on his belly after 15-20 minutes of feeding. Staying on paunch creates a mild pressure which improves to discharge the gas.
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Sucking Pacifier
Sucking pacifier is helpful in reducing gases. But vigorous sucking can cause excess swallowing of air which may cause gassy pain. Therefore, you have to be very careful about the needs when using a pacifier to your baby.
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Swaddling
Some babies feel comfortable when wrapped in clothes. Often the nurses put the baby in clothes wrap which is also helpful to improve the gassy tummy.
However, you should be careful to use this technique as US-FDA puts a caution on the practice of swaddling.
Which medicine suitable for my gassy baby?
It is always good to take advice from your pediatrician for taking any medication. However, there are some medicines available in the market which need no prescription and widely used for baby gas. There are four popular pediatric supplements or medicine popular in the treatment of the gas problem.
Simethicone
This drug works by binding with a gas bubble and prepare an easy way to expel it. Simethicone is an antiflatulating medicine for relief of gas pain. Although Simethicone is the most widely used medication for baby gas, it is not efficient for all.
We don’t tend to give you medical advice. We always advise you to go to your doctor before giving medicine to your baby.
Gripe water
Gripe water has above hundred year history in using for newborns. Gripe water contains natural ingredients. Gripe water can improve a gassy tummy within five minutes.
However, many countries of the world have banned the production and distribution of Gripe water. But still, it’s a trusted name to mother, nurses, and doctors.
Homeopathic Gas Drop
There are several homeopathic gas drop available in the market. The medicine contains natural elements that ensure the comfort from gas. The important thing about the drops is they don’t need continuous dosing.
This drop takes just a few minutes to relieve gas pain. Most of the drops don’t require a prescription.
Probiotics
Using probiotics in the baby food is often effective. Probiotics maintain the balance of microbes in the gut. Probiotics reduce the chance of gut infection and producing gases. There are a number of formula available for your young baby that contains probiotics. However, if your baby has started taking solid food, you can give him some yogurt every day as a source of probiotics.
We know the value of the baby. Therefore, we always advise you to take the help of a healthcare professional to give a medication to your baby.