Babies are gassy because their digestive systems are still developing, and that’s completely normal. More than half of all infants experience at least one gastrointestinal symptom like gas, bloating, or colic in their first months of life. The good news: most of the time, a gassy baby is a healthy baby whose gut just needs time to mature.
That said, some causes of excess gas are fixable right now, and a few are worth watching closely. Here’s what’s actually going on inside your baby’s belly and what you can do about it.
An Immature Gut Is the Biggest Factor
Your baby’s intestines look fully formed at birth, but the functional machinery inside them is still catching up. Organized muscle contractions that move food through the gut don’t fully develop until late in pregnancy, and even full-term newborns have weaker, less coordinated intestinal movements than older children. That means gas gets trapped more easily and takes longer to work its way out.
On top of that, your baby’s gut is being colonized by bacteria for the first time. These microbes help digest food, but in the process they ferment undigested carbohydrates, particularly sugars like lactose, and produce gas as a byproduct. In the early weeks, the bacterial community is unstable and shifts rapidly, which can make gas production unpredictable. As the microbiome settles into a more balanced state over the first few months, digestion generally becomes smoother and gas decreases on its own.
Swallowed Air During Feeding
Every baby swallows some air while eating. But certain feeding situations cause them to swallow a lot more, and that air has to come out one end or the other.
For breastfed babies, a shallow or poor latch is one of the most common culprits. When your baby doesn’t form a tight seal around the breast, air slips in with each swallow. Tongue tie and lip tie can make this worse by preventing the baby from latching deeply, leading to disorganized swallowing that pulls in extra air. If breastfeeding is painful for you or you hear clicking sounds while your baby feeds, a lactation consultant can check for these issues.
For bottle-fed babies, nipple flow rate matters. A nipple that’s too fast forces your baby to gulp, trapping air. One that’s too slow makes them suck harder and pull in air around the sides. Paced bottle feeding, where you hold the bottle at a slight angle and let your baby control the pace, can reduce the amount of air they take in. Anti-colic bottles with venting systems also help some babies, though results vary.
Lactose Overload vs. Lactose Intolerance
Parents often jump to lactose intolerance when their baby is gassy, but true lactose intolerance is rare in infants. Babies are born producing plenty of lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose in milk. Lactose overload, on the other hand, is quite common and easy to fix.
Lactose overload happens when a baby takes in more lactose than their gut can process at once. This is especially likely when a breastfeeding mother has a natural oversupply of milk. The baby fills up on the higher-lactose milk at the beginning of a feeding without getting to the fattier milk that slows digestion. All that extra lactose passes undigested into the lower intestine, where bacteria ferment it and produce gas. Symptoms include explosive, frothy, or green stools along with lots of gas and fussiness.
The fix is often straightforward: make sure your baby fully drains one breast before switching to the other. This helps them get a more balanced ratio of lactose to fat. If oversupply is the issue, feeding no more often than every three hours can help regulate your milk production.
Formula Ingredients That Play a Role
Not all formulas are created equal when it comes to gas. One ingredient to watch for is palm olein oil, commonly listed as palm oil on labels. Multiple clinical studies have shown that formulas using palm olein as their primary fat source produce firmer stools in babies compared to formulas without it. Firmer stools slow down bowel movements, which can contribute to gas buildup and general discomfort. This effect holds regardless of whether the formula uses intact or hydrolyzed protein, milk or soy-based ingredients.
Cow’s milk protein sensitivity is another possibility. A milk allergy typically shows up as a combination of gas, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. If your baby seems uncomfortable after most feedings and also has loose or mucusy stools, your pediatrician may suggest trying a hydrolyzed formula where the proteins are already broken into smaller pieces that are easier to digest.
What About Your Diet While Breastfeeding?
The belief that broccoli, onions, beans, or chocolate in a mother’s diet cause gas in breastfed babies is deeply ingrained but mostly unsupported by evidence. With one exception, little scientific data shows that eliminating specific foods from a breastfeeding mother’s diet reduces infant gas or fussiness.
That exception is cow’s milk protein. When a baby has a genuine cow’s milk allergy, removing dairy from the mother’s diet can make a meaningful difference. One trial found that a low-allergen maternal diet reduced infant crying by about 60 minutes over 48 hours, but even then, mothers didn’t report an overall subjective improvement. Broadly restricting your diet while breastfeeding, cutting out dairy, eggs, wheat, soy, cruciferous vegetables, and more, is a significant burden with very limited evidence behind it. If you suspect a food sensitivity, work with your pediatrician to test one food at a time rather than overhauling your entire diet.
Physical Techniques That Help Move Gas
When your baby is visibly uncomfortable with trapped gas, a few hands-on techniques can help move things along mechanically.
- Bicycle legs: Lay your baby on their back and gently move their legs in a cycling motion. This compresses and releases the abdomen rhythmically, helping gas bubbles shift toward the exit.
- Knee-to-tummy press: With your baby on their back, gently push both knees up toward their belly, hold for three to five seconds, then release. Repeat three to five times.
- Tummy massage: Using your fingertips, “walk” across your baby’s belly from their left to their right, just above the navel, with a gentle push-pull motion. You may feel gas bubbles moving under your fingers as you do this. The goal is to guide gas and intestinal contents toward the bowel.
- Tummy time: Placing your baby on their stomach while awake and supervised puts gentle pressure on the abdomen, which can help trapped gas pass.
Burping during and after feeds, not just at the end, also prevents air from moving deeper into the intestines where it becomes harder to release.
Do Gas Drops Actually Work?
Simethicone drops (sold as Mylicon, Little Remedies, and other brands) are one of the most popular over-the-counter remedies parents reach for. They work by combining small gas bubbles into larger ones that are theoretically easier to pass. However, the clinical evidence is disappointing. In a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of 83 infants, simethicone was no more effective than a placebo. About 54% of treatment periods showed improvement, but improvement rates were identical whether the baby received simethicone or the placebo. Simethicone is safe, so there’s no harm in trying it, but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t make a noticeable difference.
Probiotics tell a more interesting story. A meta-analysis of four double-blind trials found that one specific probiotic strain reduced crying and fussing time by about 25 minutes per day compared to placebo, and babies receiving it were almost twice as likely to show improvement. The catch: these results were dramatic in breastfed infants but insignificant in formula-fed babies. If you’re breastfeeding a colicky, gassy baby, a probiotic supplement with this specific strain may be worth discussing with your pediatrician.
Signs That Gas Might Be Something More
Garden-variety gas, even a lot of it, doesn’t make babies sick. But gas paired with certain other symptoms can signal something that needs medical attention. Watch for these red flags:
- Feeding problems: refusing the breast or bottle, drinking significantly less milk than usual
- Vomiting or diarrhea: especially if persistent or forceful, which may point to a milk allergy or infection
- Poor weight gain: gas combined with failure to gain weight suggests nutrients aren’t being absorbed properly
- Unusual irritability: becoming more upset when held or touched, rather than comforted
- Changes in alertness or breathing: increased sleepiness, sluggishness, or any change in breathing rate or effort
A gassy baby who is feeding well, gaining weight, and generally content between fussy episodes is almost certainly fine. Most babies outgrow their worst gas by three to four months as their gut matures, their microbiome stabilizes, and their feeding coordination improves.