5 weeks early, slow feeder and slow weight gain?

[Krose]

My little lad was born 5 weeks early weighing 5lbs 6ozs and was in the scbu for a week being tube fed. He has always been a slow feeder, it takes around an hour to feed him most feeds. When he initially came out of hosp we had to wake him to give his milk. We've always had to encourage him. Now he refuses his milk after 2/3ozs so we have started giving him his milk in his baby cereals which has been ok'd by the Doc. He seems to really love it the more solid it is. But try to give it to him really mushy to get as much of his milk in.
So hes now 22 weeks and weighs 12lbs, is this ok? can anyone relate to this? Is there anything else i can do?I seem to be obsessed with him getting his milk.

[PuzzleRocks]

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[Sammy82]

This is a bit late but I hope it helps. Both my first son was born at 35 weeks and 4lb 10z in neonatal and tube feed for a week and second son at 34 weeks at 5lb 06oz and escaped everything his eldest brother had to go though.
Both were slow feeders and gain weight slowly, my youngest was the worst and only weighed 10lb at 26 weeks. I was in and out of hospital with him and nothing was wrong with him, it was just the way he was.
My first health vistor but it all into context for my be saying that each baby developes in there own time and both my boys started really putting wait on when they were weaned and so long as you aren't worried about his development then I'm sure he'll catch up in his own time. My youngest is still small at 32 weeks he is 15lbs but he is a happy and alert 7 month old and I have no worries.

[Jenbot]

There's a thread on the prem page here with everyone giving the weights of their babies at different ages you might want to look at! Unless your Dr is telling you to worry I think you should try not to panic.

[Rascal1979]

Hi Krose

I know exactly how you feel and understand totally the stress you are feeling

I know it's difficult but please try not to stress about your baby's weight. I started the thread that Jenbot refs to when I was stressing about babyrascal's weight earlier last year.

At 22 weeks my DD was 8lb 2.5oz!! so a fair bit smaller than your DS is.

Now she is 13mths and still small at 15lb but I have relaxed and I am no longer concerned about her weight, I'm just grateful that she is happy, content and healthy x

[Klaw]

No real experience of prem babies but I always think that if they're 'Bright eye'd and bushy tailed' (iykwim?) then there's nothing really wrong, it's just the way they are.

is he consistently putting on weight? (even if it's only little bits)
is he growing?
is he happy and healthy?

Remember to expect him to reach his milestones by his expected Due date, not his actual birth date. Right now he should be compared to other 17wk babies.

[Klaw]

btw my dd was 7lb 10oz at 42+1 and slowly gained her weight. At 3.7 she still hasn't reached 15kg to be able to go into next stage car seat whereas others, mainly boys, might have been in the next stage for nearly a year!

When getting her weighed as a baby I never compared against others. I just checked she was on her centile and as long as she stayed on or near her curve she was fine!