Spit-up Happens, Dads Deal

Daddy Clay: Hey there! Welcome back to The Lab. This week were brought to you by OxiClean Baby, powered by the air you breathe, activated by the water you drink—OxiClean baby.

Daddy Brad: It is a good thing that we are being sponsored by OxiClean Baby this week because we are going to be talking about one of the messier aspects of fatherhood. And this one they don’t tell the expecting young ‘do’ dad.

Daddy Clay: Yes, dads know about dirty diapers. Of course, blowout diapers, they are a disaster! This other kind of mess, you will only find out about at the baby shower when you start getting as presents, all these blankets and cloths and you turn to your wife, you will say, “Hey, what is that?” And she says, “That is burp cloth!” and you think to yourself, “you know, except for a couple of times in college, I do not generally need a cloth when I burp.” And that is what they do not tell you! Babies are barfing machines!

Daddy Clay: Now, let us get one thing perfectly cleared! Babies do not ‘yak.’ Babies do not barf. Babies do not vomit. Babies spit up.

Daddy Brad: If you tell your wife that the baby puked on the couch, she is going to get upset. But if you tell her the baby spit up on the couch, she will say, “Oh! Is it not that cute?”

Daddy Clay: Now, why do babies burp up all the time? And burp up is actually is unacceptable alternative to spit up. To find out why, we asked pediatrician and author Dr. Ari Brown.

Dr. Ari Brown: Well, your gastro intestinal track, which is the part that digest your food, is just one big tube, okay! And so, you got an esophagus that then attaches to your stomach. And in babies, there is a muscle between the esophagus and the stomach that is very loose when they are first born and it tightens up usually around six months of age. And so while that muscle is still kind of loose, the milk will go down and then the milk can very easily come right back up. Once it gets thicker and tighter, just like adults, the food doesn’t keep sloshing and swashing up and down.

All babies spit up to a certain degree. If you have a particularly spitty baby, there are some maneuvers that you can do to minimize the amount of stuff that is coming out. So, first of all, is trying to keep your baby as upright as possible for about fifteen or twenty minutes after a feeding. So, it is probably not a good idea to go play helicopter with your baby right after a feeding because you are going to see the food come right back at you, so it’s a bad idea. So, keeping him upright, keeping him calm and not putting him right down, to lay down because the symptoms are going to be worse when the baby is lying horizontally.

Daddy Brad: Even when the dad can’t feed, a dad can burp, so to speak. Burping is an area of dad at value. Make sure you spread that cloth on your shoulder as wide as possible but no matter what you do, spit up is going to happen.

Daddy Clay: Compared to the up tract at later stages of development, spit up is relatively innocuous. This looks like this white, watery – anyway, you get the picture. Do not be fooled by the appearance. If you succumb the temptation and just rub that stuff in, you are going to be rewarded with some nice, brownish, yellowish stains all over the ones he has spits which may not bother you that much but your wife is going to say something like, “You cannot wear that!” And go buy a bunch of new clothes. Save yourself some money. Get little Oxi bag, hit that stain, throw it in the washing machine, those things.

Daddy Brad: Which brings up the question, you are all dressed for work in the morning and you are helping out, burping the baby and boom! You get tagged a little spit up right there. What do you do?

Daddy Clay: Well, clearly changing is a terrible idea because that spit up, that is badge of honor.

Daddy Brad: You want people to see that you help out!

Daddy Clay: Exactly, that is a badge that you want everyone to see. You want to set an example for the next generation of dads, to get spit up on them.

Daddy Brad: Yes! and when you get home, you put some OxiClean and save the dry cle