night feedings: to burp or not to burp

[mommy at last]

My 3 1/2 month old sometimes burps himself. He's a big spitter upper in general. At night, being the big eater that he is, he wakes up every 2 to 6 hours to feed -- depending on the night. I'm often torn as to whether to pick him up and burp him once he's off the nipple before going back to bed. I've always done it, because it seems like he's gassy if I don't. But perhaps this isn't even the case any longer. Often it wakes him up more than if I'd just let him lay. I heard other cultures don't even burp their baby. What do other people do?

mommy at last

[shematrix]

I never burped dd at night. We co-sleep so she would just nurse and we would both fall to sleep. She never had any problems from not being burped.

Brenda

[mama2girls]

You could try it either way and see how ds reacts. This is what we do:

If I'm laying next to dd, I just let her be. If I'm sitting in a chair and she falls asleep after nursing on my lap, I put her on my shoulder for a few minutes and occasionally she burps before I lie her down. This seems to work for us. She's a pretty big spitter up, but only a couple of times a day now.

My thought has always been to not wake a sleeping baby. My dd gets up in the night to nurse and I never change her diaper anymore. She nurses better when she's half asleep.