Dd was born ten days ago at 35 weeks. She was tube fed in scbu for the first few days, then we introduced breastfeeding, and finally stopped her top ups on Friday and were discharged on Sunday when she started gaining weight. She had a bit of jaundice but was healthy apart from that.
Now we are home I am a bit confused about bfing and wondered if anyone else had experience with preterm babies? None of the usual advice seems to apply to her.
Also she is my first and because she was preterm I hadn't been to antenatal classes yet and feel a bit lost. I am normally a control freak super organised so it feels weird to me to be so unprepared.
In scbu she was used to four hourly feeds and has mostly stuck to that schedule. Sometimes she wakes up earlier but often she has to be woken for a feed. She often falls asleep halfway through a feed and I have to change her nappy to wake her up. She is generally sleepy and only wakes up for food. In many ways this makes life easy for me, but I don't know if it's something to be concerned about.
The scbu staff were good for advice but often contradicted each other leaving me more confused. For example one person told me to feed her as soon as she wakes up and starts to root, another said to wait for her to cry so she is good and hungry.
Today the community midwife came to our house. She said dd has gained weight again so we must be doing something right. but when she arrived i was at the end of a feed and she said dd wasn't latched on properly. She showed me how to latch properly but to be honest I don't know if I can repeat it. Also if dd fails to latch after a few tries she gets cross and either cries or drops off depending how hungry she is so I am reluctant to pull her off the breast.
Apologies for the long post, but I wondered if anyone is or has been in the same boat, if this sounds normal, and if you can offer any advice.
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Infant feeding
breastfeeding premature baby
16 replies
mrsbugsywugsy · 01/01/2013 16:21
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