Reflux Burping 101

Traditionally, reflux babies are hard to burp.  As a mother of three of them, you find new and creative ways to get the air out and I usually go in this order...

1. The classic upright against your shoulder.
2. When that doesn't work, you hang them half way over your shoulder so it's pressing on their gut.
3. When that doesn't work, you sit them upright your leg and move them back and forth and continue patting...
4. Next comes walking around while they're upright against your shoulder.  If you walk flat footed and jar them a bit, it works much better (If I had stairs, I'd be getting my exercise in, that's for sure, I've read that's a great way too!)
5. After that, you pat a little harder, because SURELY after all this, the air should be out by now.
6. Eventually, you hold their stomach up to your ear and move them back and forth gently to make sure you hear their stomach contents sloshing which, indeed, indicates there is air present.
7. When all else fails, you do laundry.  

Yes, you read me right.  Do laundry.  Or pee.  Or take a nap.  At 2 am, all you can do with a relaxed baby who is sleeping and won't burp is lay her down until she's ready to.  Last night, I happened to have peed before I fed her.  I just remembered half way through that I had laundry in the washer that needed to go in the dryer before it soured.  So I laid her down flat and proceeded to do laundry.  AT TWO A.M. people.

You see, the beauty of laying them flat when they have a big air bubble is that it somehow brings it up (think about us having reflux and how they tell us not to lay flat it will make it worse).  After a minute or two of them laying like this, they'll start to squirm.  All three of mine have done this and if I just ignore them or put them down before they've burped good enough, they wake up after a few minutes crying.

When they start to squirm, you begin all over again with the steps I mentioned above.  Very rarely do I get past the first classic shoulder position.  After that, I just plop her back down and she's back to sleep for good until she's ready to eat again.  Reflux babies are my specialty apparently.  New Baby doesn't spit up much but has more of the "silent" kind where it just pops up in her throat and she swallows it back down.  But hey, at least I got a head start on my chores for today!