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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks.

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Speaker 2: A'd be gas. I think of all the things I

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Speaker 2: knew in theory at least about parenting a newborn, but

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Speaker 2: had to experience in person to fully appreciate, I think

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Speaker 2: it's gas, the myriad curiosities of a two and a

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Speaker 2: half week old's digestive tract that have left me the

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Speaker 2: most befuddled. You know, I knew in theory that babies

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Speaker 2: had to be burped. Okay, I knew in theory they

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Speaker 2: often have problems and discomfort when digesting their latest feeds.

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Speaker 2: And I knew in theory that a baby with gas

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Speaker 2: or an obstruction somewhere in his guts might even wake

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Speaker 2: himself up. I guess I'm just shocked at the speed

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Speaker 2: with which I've transformed into one of those parents totally

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Speaker 2: obsessed with his baby son's belches and bowels. It's the

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Speaker 2: pain that does it, when something's trapped somewhere deep, the

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Speaker 2: way his little face scrunches up and contorts, how he

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Speaker 2: writhes and twists and clenches every muscle in his body.

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Speaker 2: Often I'm holding him, and he's holding me, his tiny

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Speaker 2: little hand gripping my index finger as he clenches his

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Speaker 2: fingers white, his face a crimson red with the strain

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Speaker 2: and effort. Before you ask, yes, I have tried various

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Speaker 2: techniques for getting things moving at both ends. In fact,

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Speaker 2: my social media feed these days seems to me nothing

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Speaker 2: but baby osteopaths holding infants and folding them in half.

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Speaker 2: There's the classic baby over the shoulder, pat on the back.

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Speaker 2: There's the stomach massage, the bicycle legs, and the deep squat.

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Speaker 2: There's the baby over the forearm next supported facing out,

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Speaker 2: and the baby over the forearm next supported facing in.

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Speaker 2: My personal favorite is the wheel waggle, where you lift

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Speaker 2: him gently just under his armpits with one hand and

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Speaker 2: then take his weight under his butt with the other,

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Speaker 2: and you gently move your hands in different directions to

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Speaker 2: try and bring a range of movement to his digestive track,

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Speaker 2: and the hope that you'll be rewarded with a range

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Speaker 2: of movements in return. I knew we would have disrupted sleep.

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Speaker 2: I just never really accounted for the gas part of

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Speaker 2: being up at night. His mum feeds him. There's not

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Speaker 2: much I can do there, But then of course one

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Speaker 2: of us has to sit up in bed for a

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Speaker 2: non specific amount of time, just waiting. You can never

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Speaker 2: be totally sure that he's been fully burned. There's no

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Speaker 2: finish line, as it were. There is an alarm that

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Speaker 2: goes off. It's a judgment call. And at two point

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Speaker 2: fifty three am, when your body is urging you to

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Speaker 2: lie down and go back to sleep, look at him.

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Speaker 2: He seems far You know that if you pull the

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Speaker 2: trigger too early, he'll be waking himself up in twenty minutes,

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Speaker 2: twisting and groaning in his cot. When you think about it,

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Speaker 2: it's kind of crazy that newborns go from relying on

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Speaker 2: the placenta for all of their nutrients to instantly switching

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Speaker 2: on the full length of the complex human digestive tract.

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Speaker 2: It's not like they ease into it. Alas. As our

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Speaker 2: son's milk intake has increased, his digestive tract has not

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Speaker 2: quite kept pace. Put simply, the outputs don't always match

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Speaker 2: the inputs. It's perfectly normal, of course, and he's far

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Speaker 2: too young to be hurrying up with a tray of

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Speaker 2: black coffee and prune juice. But sometimes his stomach feels

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Speaker 2: hard to the touch, cruelly. His preferred way of soothing

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Speaker 2: his discomfort is to feed again, which then exacerbates the problem,

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Speaker 2: and at nineteen days old, he's not yet ready to

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Speaker 2: listen to reason or comprehend the concept of a vicious cycle.

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Speaker 2: I'm back in the office full time this week after

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Speaker 2: a wonderful little period at home, but I can tell

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Speaker 2: you already that my texts with my wife are going

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Speaker 2: to take on a grimly digestive line of inquiry. The

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Speaker 2: thing about parenting is that while you share in your

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Speaker 2: child's discomfort, you also share and they're almighty relief, especially

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Speaker 2: when someone else is on cleaner.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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