Burping Your Baby

It’s one of the defining moments of being a parent when you pick up your baby, place them tenderly over your shoulder, give their back a little rub and hear the sound of a baby burping.

Why do we burp babies? Well babies can swallow air when feeding which then becomes trapped in the stomach. As every parent knows, babies are ill equipped to cope with even minor discomfort so burping a baby is a way of helping them expel this excess air thus, one hopes, avoiding a fretful infant with a windy tummy.

There are various methods for burping babies. The most common is "over your shoulder". Here the baby is held against the chest with their head resting on your shoulder. Whilst one hand supports them under their bottom the other hand is free to rub or gently pat the baby’s back until they burp. People like this method because it feels like a natural extension of giving a baby a cuddle.

Another method is to place the baby face down across your lap with their head on one thigh and their stomach on the other. Then rub or pat their back. A variation of this is to slightly raise the baby’s head with one of your hands so their head is now higher than their tummy.

A third popular method is to have the baby on your lap in a sitting position, leaning slightly forward, with their chin and chest resting on your hand as you rub their back.

You may have to chop and change between various methods to find one that suits you and your baby. The different temperaments and sizes of babies means that there is no one perfect method to produce a burp.

It’s important not to get too obsessed about burping. There’s a natural variation between babies as to how much air they swallow. As a rule breastfed babies tend to swallow less air than bottle fed babies so will need less burping. If after a few minutes of back rubbing nothing has happened your baby probably just doesn’t need to burp.

And one final tip – not all burps expel just air. Some of them are decidedly wet and very milky! You'll find a little goes a long way so to prevent milky stains on your clothes always keep a cloth handy when attempting to burp your baby.