We've been home several days with our 34 week premie baby, gestational age 37 weeks. She's doing well and has no ongoing health/medical problems, and did well with progressing from tube feeding to breastfeeding before we came home.
My worry is around what I should be expecting of her- we were told to take her home and enjoy her and that we can think of her as a normal baby (just a bit miniature). But my experience of newborn babies (friends with children/reading about looking after newborn babies) is that they cry a lot, are hard to settle, need lots of cuddles/holding to settle etc, whereas our LO is very sleepy, settles easily after a feed and change, and only makes a little squawk and wriggles about to indicate she is ready for her next feed. We are giving her cuddles and interacting with her/talking to her etc when she's awake but I'm feeling anxious that we're not going to bond well because she's so content to just be fed, changed and go back in her crib/carrycot.
I'm aware I'm probably jumping the gun and you'll tell me she'll soon become a more wakeful baby who interacts, who screams the house down, but the reassurance would be good! I'm feeling emotional over her birth and feel the pain of her being whisked off to SCBU after the EMCS, and the initial worries that she didn't feel enough like 'my' baby (because I wasn't the one looking after her) are still lingering around, and I'm having difficulty thinking/saying certain phrases like that I 'gave birth' to her - as the EMCS was more like she was taken out of me before either of us were ready, rather than me giving birth to her at the right time. I still find it a bit hard to associate her with the baby that was inside me, because it feels like she wasn't 'mine' for that initial period after the EMCS whilst she was in an incubator etc. I'm just so desperate to get the bonding right with her that I worry we aren't spending enough time together now, but when she sleeps so much and is so content to just be put down on her own I worry we aren't bonding enough. I don't feel like I'm having problems loving her- the more time we spend together she feels like my world, especially now we are home.
Any advice/reassurance would be very welcome! Thanks.
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Premature birth
34 week premie, now home- what to expect?
13 replies
Toast85 · 26/09/2015 10:05
OP posts:
MiaowTheCat ·
20/11/2015 18:02
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