Advice please - breastfeeding preemies
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We established breastfeeding fully (no bottle top ups from pumping) on my baby’s due date. By coincidence that was the point at which I felt confident that he was getting enough from the breast. He was born at 33+6 and had 2 weeks in the special care unit. While he was in hospital I had help from the staff on the ward and put him on the breast whenever he was due to feed, gave him tube feeds while on the breast, assessed how each feed went etc. I remember being delighted every time he did a proper suck! We went home bottle feeding but still trying him on the breast for most feeds. I was really against giving him bottles but it didn’t actually affect the breastfeeding in the end. It was a long slog but I’m so glad I persevered. Feel free to message me if you need to!
@Emily @Hattie thank you for sharing your experience. It is helpful to hear it from other mums. My twins are quite good at bottles now but get sleepy very quickly on my breast. I feel like it would be so much easier to figure it out at home in peace than in the NICU with everyone watching and monitoring
My baby was born at 32+2 on 18th September last year and we left the hospital doing just over 50% breastfeeding on the 21st October. Then it was a couple more weeks before he has his tube out and was fully breastfeeding. I always tried him every time he was making signs, if he was routing and opening his mouth I’d try but if he was asleep around a feed or wasn’t routing I would just let them tube feed. You can ask them to tube feed them while you’re holding them as that can help them associate the smell of you with food. Dont give up on breast feeding, the NICU staff told us you won’t go home any sooner with bottle feeds because it’s the suck/breath/swallow that they’re learning to do which they’d have to learn with bottles anyway. You’ll get there!