If your child has asthma, you can help control it with the
Buteyko method. Although this is not a substitute for
medications or a doctor’s supervision, it’s a breathing
method that can be “taught” to infants to help them be more
comfortable and begin to have control over their breathing.

With this method, you take control of your breathing by
consciously restricting your breath with very shallow
breathing until you simply must take a deep breath. This
causes CO2 to build up, eventually requiring a deeper breath
to be taken. This helps a person with asthma learn how to
consciously control breathing and avoid panicky feelings.

If you want to do this with your child but he or she is too
young to understand how to do it for him or herself, pay
attention to your own breathing for a second. What makes
your breathing deeper? Learn self-control when you take a
deep breath so that you can then use this technique on your
own baby.

First of all, as you practice on yourself, keep your mouth
closed. For anyone learning this method, this is the
easiest way to apply it. It helps control breathing because
you simply can’t take a very deep breath with your mouth
closed, which means that CO2 levels increase. This is also
very helpful, similar to the “brown bag” breathing method,
should you be suffering a panic attack. It’s likely that
when you first begin this method, you’ll want to take a deep
breath and may even feel slightly anxious about breathing,
but as you work on this, it will eventually pass.

As your body gets used to the higher levels of CO2, your
desire for a deeper breath (or the feeling of being slightly
suffocated) disappears. Once you become used to having your
mouth completely closed and this feels normal to you, you
should have a much easier time controlling your breath. In
fact, after this, it might even feel a little odd to breathe
through your mouth.

Now, to apply this technique to your baby, you simply use a
pacifier or other “mouth obstruction” technique to encourage
your child to breathe through his or her nose. Although
some parents would argue that it is not healthy to encourage
a child to suck on a pacifier or a thumb, for example, this
is merely a short-term method to encourage your child to
learn how to use the Buteyko method and control his or her
asthma. After that, you can gently break the child of the
pacifier or thumb sucking habit, just as you would any other
child who learns to depend on these comforting props.

Another way you can help your child breathe through his or
her nose is to gently push his or her lips together,
especially when the baby is sleeping. This is useful if a
child is sleeping and you simply want to discourage mouth
breathing.

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