Hi all, really hope someone can advise and/or reassure me. I'm writing this in the mother and baby room in the neonatal unit where my ds has been since his birth on 2nd October at 32 weeks, weighing 5lbs 3ozs. I've worked really hard with expressing, and despite a rocky start he's been tube-fed breast milk just about every feed. A week ago I started bf him once a day, then went to twice, yesterday I did 3 consecutive feeds and today I'm doing 4. The plan is to room in tomorrow night and Sunday night, then take him home on Monday if his weight's gone up. He dropped 7ozs in the week after birth, and has only just regained and passed his birth weight today.
The problem - when I'm bf him, he never seems to latch on for long. He'll have 5 or 6 good sucks, then fuss for a bit, then another couple of sucks, then half-hearted sucking/licking for a minute or 2, then seems windy and uncomfortable. So I wind him, then start again. This morning he fed for over an hour, but I would say only about 15 minutes of that was feeding, the rest was fussing/winding.
I'm terrified that after rooming in for 2 nights his weight will have dropped and they won't let me take him home. I'm struggling a bit if I'm honest, it's getting harder to stay positive and not just sit and weep when I'm not at the hospital. I'm convinced he can't possibly be getting enough food from bf, and that it's the tube-delivered breast milk that's been increasing his weight. If anyone has any words of wisdom I'd be forever grateful.