winding with the baby whisperer

Sharlene Poole, known to many as The Baby Whisperer, has a wonderful holistic and practical approach to parenting. We are so lucky to hear from her below on her experience and some great tips for winding your baby. We hope you find this helpful in settling your little one! x

BY SHARLENE POOLE:

I feel so lucky entering into motherhood 7 months ago with all the tools in my basket for helping George enter this world and make my life as a mother so enjoyable and stress free.

With my baby George, there was not a lot of winding necessary at the beginning as my milk flow was slow to average but still used my technique from birth.   As he has got older and as his feeding times spaced out, I found and still find now that there are times that winding is key in insuring he has enough to drink which helps him to settle and sleep well.

What have me the title ‘Baby Whisperer’ was my decision to share with parents the techniques /tools that I gathered after working around the world as a British Maternity Nurse.

My most key tool I developed is my own way of winding a newborn, building on knowledge and techniques that I had learnt while studying and watching Aunties in my youth and that I practiced, tweaked and strengthen with every newborn I was with over those 7 odd years.

Some of these techniques have evolved over the past 12yrs when I started my Little Miracles business, when working in more ‘problem’ solving jobs, where parents are struggling to have a calm and settled baby.

The reason I believe in winding so much is that when working 24hrs as a maternity nurse, I soon learnt how cycles of unsettled newborns can get started.  A baby who is not winded enough will often not feed well enough due to a false sense of fullness and they appear to be full but when that wind finally comes up on its own later (particularly when you try to settle them to sleep or after a 10-20min sleep) they often then realize they are actually still hungry.  What then happens is that they over time have short feeds, short sleeps and later in the day/evening get over-tired and are unsettled and appear to have ‘colic’.  It is what I call the ‘snowball effect’ of not winding well in the morning and day! 

Winding Top Tips

-Depending on the flow of your milk and how your baby feeds will determine how much wind your baby has.  There is no set number of time you need to wind, it is all based on the individual. It maybe 2-4x per breast in the beginning or as little as just once.

-Stopping and winding your baby during a feed is important in cases where you hear gulping and where your baby then struggles to continue to feed well, either bobbing on and off or is unsettled post feed time.

-Newborn babies often do not bring up enough wind with the traditional ‘over the shoulder’ technique and therefore I encourage using my technique where you lay the baby on their backs, massage their tummy before lifting them up and down in to a supported sitting position.

-You may have to wind more in the daytime than at night, when your baby is more active during feed time and play time.

- Be careful not to over wind your baby!  Too much handling can over stimulate and upset a baby and that can be misinterpreted as being in pain!  Try 1-2x before moving onto something different like, cuddling, nappy changing, feeding again or swaddling and settling to sleep.

Thank you for sharing your valuable knowledge with us Sharlene, we are sure these tips will be so beneficial for parents & parents-to-be. xx Nb