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What foods should I avoid to prevent gas/fussiness?

Athena - posted on 04/18/2010 ( 3 moms have responded )

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My son is 9 weeks old and has been having increasing trouble with gas, especially in the mornings. I am exclusively breastfeeding and am wondering if anyone has found certain foods that should be avoided. I try to vary my diet every day and I can't seem to pinpoint any specific food that could be the cause. He only sleeps for 3 hours at a time through the night, he used to wake up because he was hungry, now it's because of gas. He's always best once he has a bowel movement, but that's only happening every 4-5 days, which I'm told is normal, but if he had one more often he'd be a lot less gassy. Any suggestions? I try gripe water after feeding him, especially at night, but I don't think it's helping too much.

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3 Comments

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Leigh - posted on 04/19/2010

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My son got extremely gassy around 3-4 weeks. It took me a while to figure out what was causing it, but it was the amount of dairy I was taking in. I love dairy and it was very normal for me to drink 4+ glasses of milk a day, plus yogurt, cheese, etc. I stopped all dairy and about 2-3 days after he was almost gas-free. I haven't noticed other foods bothering him too much other than broccoli - made the mistake one night of making beef and broccoli for dinner. They say, though, that anything that makes you gassy could make your baby gassy. The best way we figured out to help him was to rub his belly clockwise (its the way your large intestine go) and bringing his knees to chest while he is lying on his back. The last trick in my bag is that if you insert a thermometer into their bum it helps let the gas out. Learned that by accident one night when he was screaming so loud/long that I thought something else had to be wrong and went to take his temperature. Good Luck, I know it's frustrtating to see them in pain and not to be able to do anything to relieve it.

Valerie - posted on 04/18/2010

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i am not a fan of the its ok to poop every 4-5 days...i think one day in the future they will reverse that...The most likely culprit for your baby is dairy products in your diet — milk, cheese, yogurt, pudding, ice cream, or any food that has milk, milk products, casein, whey, or sodium caseinate in it. Other foods, too — like wheat, corn, fish, eggs, or peanuts — can cause problems. Don't severely limit your diet on the hunch that your baby might have a food sensitivity, but if you suspect that a particular food is giving your baby trouble, you could try eliminating it for a week to see what happens. Some foods take longer than a week to completely clear your system, but you should see improvement in your baby's behavior within a few days.If you have an abundance of milk (you feel as though you could handily breastfeed the entire church nursery and have some to spare), your baby may be suffering from what's called "lactose overload." This happens if your baby gets a lot of foremilk, which has less fat to slow down the digestive process. As a result, the enzyme in his system that digests lactose isn't released quickly enough to do its job.

To deal with this, nurse on only one side at each feeding, or nurse twice on one side before going to the other side.

Maree - posted on 04/18/2010

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The foods I avoided until my children were bit older were things like cabbage, onions, oranges and anything that would give any person extra gas like baked beans etc. I had trouble with my daughter as she hasd a lot of wind when she was little so I went to the health food shop and bought a supplement that helped bring up her wind. Hope this helps as theres nothing worse than a windy bub. All the best.

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