Isn’t it amazing what kind of questions you Google or YouTube when you become a parent? For example, you probably never thought you would Google how to help your baby with gas or how to help relieve your newborn’s gas pain. But here you are: I’m so glad you found this video because that is exactly what we’re going to teach you today!

Why do babies get gas?

Almost all babies get gas. Gas happens when air is trapped within the digestive tract and common causes include the following:

1. Swallowing air

Babies may swallow air while bottle or breastfeeding in certain positions, crying, babbling, and sucking on a pacifier.

2. Digestive problems

It’s common for babies to experience constipation and/or reflux, both of which may cause gas.

3. Immature gastrointestinal tract

A baby’s body is learning how to digest food, so it’s common for them to experience more gas than adults.

4. Baby’s diet

Breastfed babies may experience sensitivities to food found in their mother’s breast milk. Bottle-fed babies may experience gas due to the mixing of formula creating excessive air bubbles or from a nipple size that is too fast. Older babies that have started eating solids may experience gas when trying new foods and develop new food sensitivities.

5. Gastrointestinal virus

Diarrhea and vomiting, along with gas, are common symptoms of a “stomach bug” caused by a virus.

What are the symptoms of Gas Pain?

When air is trapped in your baby’s tummy, you may notice the following:

1. Crying (especially if crying occurs when baby is unlikely to be hungry or tired)

2. Fussiness

3. Arching of the back

4. Lifting the legs

5. A hardened or bloated tummy

6. Passing gas or burping

How to help your baby with gas pain

From a pediatric RN perspective, we are going to tell you everything you need to know about helping your child deal with gas pains and belly discomfort.

The number one excuse when it comes to why a baby is not sleeping or not napping is usually blamed on teething. And the second reason? Gas pain.

If you’re anything like me, when my infant was screaming from gas pain, I ran straight to Target to the aisle with all the gas drops thinking that these would be my savior. Unfortunately, the gas drops didn’t help. So, I asked Kate Morse, our sleep support specialist and resident pediatric RN, for help. She has several years of experience working in the pediatric Emergency Department at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO.

Kate has a wealth of knowledge and she also has a little one who was very gracious enough to let us practice some maneuvers on how to help your baby deal with gas. So here’s Kate to teach you about how to help your little one work through gas pains.

Exercises and Positions to Relieve Your Baby’s Gas

From Kate:

I’m going to show you a cool technique that you can use on your baby if you feel like they’re suffering. The first thing you’re going to do is lay your baby down on a flat surface. Then, gently try massaging your baby’s tummy in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions.

This treatment will move air through their tummy. The other step that you can try is to gently bicycling their legs. You don’t need to apply too much pressure, just move at your own speed.

And then the last thing that you can try is some knee hugs where you’ll just press their knees into their tummy. You can try one knee at a time and then moving to the other knee through all of those different positions.

Did that help give your child relief? I hope this was helpful for you. So you can test out these moves on your little one and let us know what works and what your favorite remedies are to try it at home as well.

I hope you guys enjoyed this video.

See you next time!