Some positioning tips: Feed your baby as upright as possible; lay your child on their back and pedal their legs with your hands to help expel gas from below; if your child is awake after a feeding, place them on their belly. Increase tummy time.
The good news is that most gas issues resolve themselves over time. However, if your baby's irritability is severe and chronic, you should suspect something other than gas as the culprit. And if your child is not growing well, the gas may be an indication of a significant digestive problem.
Gas is just as uncomfortable for babies as it is for adults. The discomfort may cause your newborn to cry or be “fussy.” Drawing legs up. If your baby moves their legs up toward the belly, it could be a sign of abdominal pain caused by gas.
Tips to relieve baby's gas discomfort at night
At the last feed before bedtime, make sure you keep their head higher than their stomach while feeding, and their backs are held as straight as can be. Allow plenty of time to burp your baby mid-feed and post-feed.
If your baby doesn't burp after a few minutes, continue feeding or try some tummy time to help a baby to burp on their own. Tummy time. Placing a baby on their stomach while awake helps to relieve gas pains. By gently increasing the abdominal pressure, tummy time pushes gas bubbles up and out.
Gas troubles often start right away or when babies are just a couple of weeks old. Fortunately, most infants outgrow them by the time they're 4 to 6 months old, though for some, baby gas can last longer. Infants are usually gassy because they have immature digestive systems and swallow air during feedings.
Let baby suck his fingers or a pacifier – this is soothing. Feed baby with his head higher than his tummy so that air floats to the top and is easier to burp. Burp your baby frequently. Since babies can't sit upright or walk around to expel gas like adults.
Also, babies with colic may burp frequently or pass a significant amount of gas, but this is thought to be due to swallowing air while crying, and is not a cause of colic.
Sit your baby on your lap supporting the chin and chest with one hand. Rub or pat the back with your other hand. Tip: Use repeated, gentle pats on your baby's back. Rest your baby faced down on your lap and gently rub or pat the back.
Colic most often starts when a baby is about 2–5 weeks old and gets better by the time the baby is 3–4 months old. Any baby can have colic.
Infant poop frequency
Babies can poop as frequently as every feeding or as infrequently as every two to three days. Neither of these situations should cause you alarm. Breastfed infants tend to poop more frequently than formula-fed infants.
Pacify Them. Infants have a strong sucking instinct, so a pacifier can calm your colicky baby. Bonus: Studies show binkies may help prevent sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
So, can pacifiers cause gas? While pacifiers are not the major culprits of producing gas, they are one of the minor causes. “Babies can swallow air during feeding, when using a pacifier and while crying,” Natasha Burgert, M.D., wrote in Forbes.
Gassiness is often worse at night. This is due, on the most part, to baby's immature digestive system and has nothing to do with what mom does or eats.
Let the formula settle
Why? The more shaking and blending involved, the more air bubbles get into the mix, which can then be swallowed by your baby and result in gas. Try using warm (but not too hot) water compared to cold or room temperature water.
Just as crying is a fact of baby life, so, too, is baby gas. But when your infant has painful gas, especially if it's frequent, it can cause your baby to cry or become fussy—until it's passed; unlike colic, which causes crying and fussiness that lasts for hours across days and weeks.
Colic usually starts when babies are about 3 weeks old. It gets worse when they are between 4 and 6 weeks old. Most of the time, colicky babies get better after they are 6 weeks old, and are completely fine by the time they are 12 weeks old.
Support your baby's head and neck, make sure their tummy and back is nice and straight (not curled up), and rub or pat their back gently. You don't need to spend ages burping your baby, a couple of minutes should be enough.