For us, especially at the beginning, we always offered food first since Audrey was (and is) so small. We try to get her as many calories as she’ll take.

One downside to our cloth diapers is that they don’t absorb the same as disposable diapers. As soon as they’re wet, she feels it. Cloth doesn’t have the chemicals to absorb like disposables do. Because of this, we really do change her diaper 10+ times a day. Babies in disposables can usually pee 2-3 (or more) times before they notice it’s wet and cry to be changed. Audrey feels the wetness and wants to be changed after every pee in her cloth prefolds. As a side note, if you end up ever using cloth and go with AIOs or other types, I’ve heard those kinds of diapers do have better absorbing abilities.

So I think a lot of it is just time, for both you to learn how the baby cries and for the baby to begin to cry in different ways. You’ll pick up on it soon!

Gas Drops – http://www.littleremedies.com/littletummys_gas.html
Saline Drops – http://www.littleremedies.com/littlenoses_saline.html

These are totally safe for newborns and both work like a charm.
Gas drops is a very small dose of the most common gas relief medicine (smithecone). It’s the stuff in gas-x, but it’s a dose for babies.

If he is throwing up/spitting up, that might help him. And if he throws up TOO much, then he might have a little reflux (it can last till about 9 mos or so) and there is (believe it or not) little baby zantac. But that’s all way far down the road after you try everything. No need to medicate w/something like zantac if the other gentler stuff works well.

As far as spitting up: keep him from laying all the way down or bouncing a lot right after feedings for a while. (You can use a “bouncer” chair – he won’t bounce himself – that will keep him in a more sitting position). That might help. Instead of patting the back to burp I simply rubbed in circles w/the palm of my hand for a few min at least. Then I would lean baby forward then back and amazingly burp and no throw up. If leaning fwd and back is a pain
I do hold baby up (tummy straight) then sit baby on my knee facing me (tummy bent). Also rubbing a little harder from the tail bone area all the way up the back gets those burps out too. My kids didn’t always burp, but if he’s spitting up he probably just needs more rubbing.

Usually, they want food. If the diaper isn’t full, offer food. Then , if he refuses food check for gas. Otherwise, the baby may just want soothing. There is a lot of time in the beginning that you’ll just hold him and that makes it better. As time goes on, you’ll let him cry it out a tad. While not all parents believe in a full-blow CIO method, there is an element of truth to it. You cannot just hold the baby every single time he seems unhappy, or you won’t get to learn what he needs, and he won’t either. For example, if you have a baby who won’t sleep, but they know they only need to make a tiny bit of noise and you’ll pick them up, then of course they won’t sleep until you’re holding them.

I just always used the baby “order of operations” (just like in math class).

1 – Diaper (if not full or stinky, leave it and move on to step 2)
2 – Food (if food is refused, step 3)
3 – Gas (gas drops are great if that burp won’t come out)
4 – Soothe
5 – THEN start over. Sometimes after the soothing, he’ll be more receptive to the other things.

As for the burping… again, people said it’d take hours, but with Robs we tended to pat him for 5 mins, and if he hadn’t burped by then I’d assume he was okay. But to be fair to him, he didn’t have much of an issue with wind.

Loving the blog!