Newborn advice: breastfeeding & gassy babies - no-one told us that gassy foods translate in the milk. Recipes or nongassy food ideas?

I seem to be cross-posting on your baby questions. On the fussy baby question I suggested there might be underlying nursing issues. So here I'll elaborate a bit more on the nursing issues.

Part of the difficulty this culture seems to have regarding a collective knowledge about nursing babies is that there was a 50-year or more gap in how we fed babies. With the advent of the baby bottle, American women were urged to give babies cows milk and later formula, instead of nursing their babies themselves. I am glad to see a huge turning in that tide, but information wasn't passed down for several generations and a lot of common wisdom was lost.

Both of my babies nursed for about 2 1/2 years. Now before you blanch at the idea, consider the bell curve. Up until about age six months, they nursed exclusively.

Once they started becoming interested in the food on the table, they were given ground up food with a squirt of breast milk for moisture and to have a common underlying flavor. And as food became more important, nursing was relegated to first thing in the morning, nap time, and bedtime. Mom needs to be drinking a lot of water (not pop, not tea, not coffee, but water) during the day and as you nurse is very important.

Have a half-gallon handy when you sit down to nurse, you may drink it all. And you can pretty well presume that if a food is going to give you gas, it will give the baby gas. If you're not certain, keep your diet fairly simple and keep a food diary.

The culprits will show up easily. The cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage) are all going to have those tendencies. Other things like beans, spicy greasy meats, and things that have a strong flavor that you might not think of, like multivitamins (those big prenatal ones, for example), can give an off taste, and I think I tended to break them or take them less often because of that.

For a whole bunch of useful tips, I'll suggest the book _The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding_ put out by La Leche League. You should find it at a local commercial bookstore, and you can find it on Amazon. tinyurl.com/yzjutxg My second child was in the hospital for two weeks, the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), because he had premature lungs.

He was on a feeding tube for over a week before I could pick him up to nurse, so I expressed milk for them to give him. Because I was older and more experienced than a lot of the moms of preemies, I ended up assisting a couple of others in learning how to successfully use the pump. The point of this story is that nursing isn't difficult, but it isn't something that is always intuitive, either.It is taught.

While it is natural, that doesn't make it naturally easy in our complex culture with so many options and (I think) misinformation from those companies that want to sell you formula. Here is a link to the main U.S.Page for La Leche League http://www.llli.org/WebUS.html.If for some reason your area isn't covered, ask your pediatrician or ob/gyn for a referral to a lactation specialist. These women are always happy to help.

And when mom is happy, baby is happy. I hope you get a good night's sleep soon! I think for us this came about more easily with the second child when we stopped trying to make the "experts" happy and let the baby nurse in the bed between his dad and me.

I'd put him back in his crib and he was fine. We all got a good night's sleep. There will be some who protest the baby sleeping in the parents' bed.

This is a separate issue, but maybe you'll want to start another question about that if you're uncertain. We had no problems, and were in fact amused that when we put the baby in the middle of the mattress with plenty of room between us, he would always, even at just a few weeks, manage to wiggle over and plaster himself to my side, following the milk smell. They can't lift their heads, they can't crawl, they can't roll, but they can find mom!

Here are some websites you can visit to find a lot of the answers you need for breastfeeding. babycenter.com/0_breast-milk-interaction... loveyourbaby.com/foods-to-avoid-while-br... modernmom.com/article-3732-which-foods-m... health.howstuffworks.com/how-breast-feed... Hope this was helpful!

Congrats, @irishstephen1974. That's right becoming new parents, it is entirely a new world which many would find it surprising and panicky especially when there's a small person involved. Breastfeeding is natural to all mothers as we all say but when a woman has her baby and tries to breastfeed the baby for the first time is will be an entirely different experience for her.

New parents definitely will learn from experience because each baby has a different personality and tolerance to every thing presented to her/him. Breastfeeding is good and encouraged. It does have health benefits and increase the bonding of mothers and babies.

Although, women who did not breastfed their babies cannot be disregarded for they can bear and raised well balanced and healthy children too. Foods that mothers who breastfed eat does some effect to their babies but not all of foods nutrients gets to be absorbed in the bloodstream and gets transferred to the baby even foods like broccolli, beans, sodas, etc. Yes, it does produce gas but it does not go to our bloodstream after digestion. Now about the babies and gas, it has been said that lactose that is in breastmilk when digested can produce gas.

So old folks suggests sometimes to feed the baby on one breast per feed so baby can get less high lactose foremilk and more of the high fat hindmilk. Personally, foods that you know is good for you can be good for the baby, one should not be discourage to breastfeed just be aware and observe and you'll pass this, and go slow on very spicy, very sour and too much caffeine foods. Hope this helps.

Just so you know, it doesn't work out that way with every baby. Only one of my babies had trouble, my oldest, and only with broccoli. And only until he was about 10 months old--after that, I could eat broccoli-cheese soup again with no problems.

And, strangely enough, the kid has always loved broccoli! Go figure. When he started eating solids he had no trouble with it, but did have a sensitivity to peas.

What causes your baby to be gassy now won't necessarily translate to trouble later. The other two had no trouble with anything I ate, and I'm an adventurous eater. Just so you realize that it might not be the same with the next one!

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