swallowing air at the breast -advice?

[dunicakes]

Hi, everyone! I am having a problem with my 3-week-old daughter, who seems to be swallowing a lot of air whenever she breastfeeds. She makes a smacking sound with her lips when she nurses, which I think means that she keeps breaking suction -- and then air gets in. After she is done nursing, she is always very gassy and belches a huge amount, and neither of those things makes her happy. I've tried to improve her latch by making sure that she "opens wide" before I put her to the breast, but even when I manage to get her to start with a good latch, she goes right back to smacking and swallowing air. Does anyone have any advice on how to handle this?

[ewe+lamb]

make sure her latch is ok - which you seem to be doing, keep baby in the cradle position making sure tummy to tummy and well tucked in to you. Try that and see what happens, if you've still got a lot of noise and smacking check the frenulums of the lips, making sure that the lips are like an open book when nursing.

[catters]

DD did this for the first few months on only my right side. That side has a considerably faster let down and if I pump, always produces almost two ounces more than my left. She swallowed a ton of air, I figured, due to the fact that she was trying to keep up with all the milk coming out, she would cough and make sort of a whooping sound as she was drinking. She unlatched a lot as well as I think it was just too much for her as milk would pour out of her mouth (and this never happened on the left side, she was always fine). Now, she's fine (four months old), and that side is still producing more than the left, so perhaps as your DD gets bigger and can swallow more at one time, she'll stop having to break the latch. Good luck.

[pumpkinhead]

What is your letdown like? Does she pull off at all during a feed? If so, is the milk spraying at that point? Does your other breast leak while she is nursing? Does milk run out of the sides of her mouth and does she gulp while she is nursing?

If so, you may have overactive letdown. If not, it may be that she has a weak latch that needs to be corrected.