Can Switching Bottle Nipple Sizes Cause Gas?
If your baby gulps down his feeding, he swallows air along with formula. While some air swallowing is inevitable when your baby feeds, swallowing excessive amounts will make him gassy and often uncomfortable. The nipple size you use can influence how much air he swallows; generally speaking, the smaller the nipple size, the better.
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Choosing a Nipple
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It's complicated to buy bottles today; sorting through the variety of nipple types and sizes can make it a confusing process. Unless you have a preemie or a baby with low muscle tone, don't buy tri-cut nipples (which have two slits rather than a single hole and allow faster milk flow) or nipples with large holes. Yes, they'll shorten your baby's feeding time, but you might pay for it later with an increase in the number of hours you'll spend walking the floor with your gassy baby. Your baby will finish a bottle in around 15 minutes on average, according to Dr. Natasha Burgert, a pediatrician and author of a contemporary parenting website. If milk flows too slowly, he might tire and lose interest in eating. Formula should flow at about the rate of one drop per second, according to HealthLink BC.
How Bottles Work
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When you switch to a larger nipple because you think your baby takes too long to feed, he might not have to suck very hard to get the formula flowing. Unlike breast milk, formula flows out of a bottle nipple whether the baby sucks or not. Babies suck and swallow in a completely different manner when they drink from a bottle rather than from the breast. Your baby must push his tongue against the nipple to slow the flow of milk if it comes out too fast. Using soft-walled nipples rather than hard nipples created a swallowing pattern more like that of breastfeeding according to a Children's Hospital Boston study published in the October 2006 issue of "Pediatric Research."
What Happens When You Switch
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When you use nipples with larger holes, your baby has to swallow forcefully and rapidly to keep up with the milk flow, possibly gulping down large amounts of air in the process. Air in the intestine leads to distention and discomfort. Your baby might burp some of it up, perhaps losing part of his feeding in the process. But much of it remains in the intestines, putting pressure on his gut. Because he feels the pressure of gas as pain, he cries. Unfortunately, crying makes him swallow more air, which creates a vicious cycle of more gas and discomfort.
Dealing with Gas
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If you can hear your baby gulping quickly during his feedings, or if he sputters, gasps or chokes, switch to a nipple with smaller holes. Keep your baby in a semi-upright position, rather than lying flat during his feeding. Hold the bottle so that the nipple is always filled with milk, so that your baby won't suck down air from the bottle. Pediatrician Dr. William Sears also suggests using a collapsible feeding bag. When your baby empties the bottle, don't let him to continue to suck on it, since he'll get more air in his digestive tract this way. Burp him after every few ounces to help him get the air he's swallowed out or he may wake with it later.
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