Premature baby question

[dinkyboysmum]

DS is now 8 weeks old, but was born 6 weeks early. When can i start reducing the amount he takes at his 3am sleep?

recently he has started taking less at his 7am feed, just 3oz out of his normal 5oz, so shoudl i reduce his 3am feed to 3oz to encourage him to take more during day? or is he still too little?

Hi - I'm doing CLBB (sort of anyway) with my 9 week old DD and I feed her however much she wants during the night. However, I don't persevere with the whole 6oz if she doesn't want it as I would during the day. She has a very healthy appetite for her early morning feed.

Having said that, my DD weighs 10lb and wasn't prem (only 2 weeks early) and I don't know what difference this would make. Does your DS wake every 4 hours? Hopefully someone with more experience will be along soon....

we're kind of following CLB routines too. he follows it pretty well during the day, although i'm waking him for his 7am feed as Gina Ford says you MUST!! the last few nights we fed at 10pm, 3am and then 7am. but he's not taking so much at 7am. this is why i'm unsure whetehr to cut down the 3am feed...won't he just wake earlier?
he weighs 9lb 7oz now.

My baby was also six weeks early. I am presuming you are ff as you mention the amount of oz you are giving to your baby. I bf every four hours for the first 6-8 weeks. My DS seemed to wake up every four hours and my HV said I should wake him if not every four hours to feed. We introduced a bottle at the last night feed at about 8 weeks so I could get some rest and go to bed early. I didn't really start to reduce feeds at all. I just started to replace bf with ff little by little. I think we gave him about 4oz to start with and then put it up bit by bit. My HV said that if he was sick afterwards then to try and reduce the next feed a little.

My DS is now almost 8 months and I also started to wean him early on advice given to me. He is doing brilliantly and absolutely loves his food!!

HTH a little!

minigirl: you are my double! 6 week prem baby & teacher too! occupational hazard maybe?!!
yes we are ff, only gone to full time ff this week though, previously exclusive bf via pumping (ds cant latch on...think his tongue is too long & my nipples too flat...combination of the two aint working!). think the formula is just filling him up more?
interesting you weaned early...i'm a bit unsure about what happens when. (in respect of actual birth date, or due date iykwim) For example, when did your ds first smile at you? i was told 6 weeks for a term baby, is that 12 weeks for us? ho hum. i guess we'll figure it all out as we go.

I think I was fortunate to have a really helpful HV. She said to me that because iron is made in the last few weeks of pregnancy, a prem baby's supplies may run low earlier than that of a baby born at term. My DH was also showing signs that he was ready for more than just milk. We started to wean at 5 months and had no problems whatsoever. Just see how it goes. Many books do say that you should wean as you described, when they reach 6 months from their due date. See what suits you and how you feel at the time.

dd2 was v prem (13 weeks early) - tbh at 2 weeks corrected i was just going with the flow and feeding whenever and however much she wanted - i certainly wasn't trying to reduce any feeds in order to try and get her through the night - that came in its own time. As for everything else, we were told to correct her age up until she was at least 2 (she's 16 months now,but her development is more like a 13/14 month old - but she's now catching up all the time). As for weaning - the current guidelines are to wean at 6 months actual, not corrected.