Starting to breastfeed my prem baby

[BadNails]

Hello, I could really use some advice on this as I suspect I have a battle ahead.

After lots of backward steps owing to a suspected cow's milk protein intolerance/allergy, I am finally trying to get DD2 to breastfeed. We're now in SCBU (moved out of NICU about ten days ago) and she's 36+2 corrected.

So I have a series of questions really. She had a brady on me yesterday whilst I was attempting to feed her :( she was a bit sleepy and tends to fall asleep within a minute or two of me trying. What can I do to keep her awake?

Our nurse thinks my flow might be too fast for her. Should I use a shield? Is it common to use one for prems?

I'm aiming to have one attempt each day. Is that enough? I want to get her home for her due date!

I think I have loads more questions, but they've just gone!

Cheers if you can help!

What I found really took the pressure off (with my 26+2 weeker) was expressing and telling myself that it was the milk that was the main thing. If he took it from me, great. If not, no biggie. It meant I stopped panicking every time he had a bad feed or a bad day, and I think the nurses also relaxed with us because they knew I wasn't 'BF at all costs'.

In fact, everything clicked once we were home (and we're still going at 13m). He ditched the SCBU routine on day 1 and just seemed to relax. And without those bloody monitors beeping and flashing, I could relax as well without worrying about bradys/desatting etc.

More practically, I was probably doing 2 or 3 tries a day by 36w (he came home at 37+1), but with one tube feed in between each attempt - partly for the meds and partly so I knew he had something. I never stripped him off etc - even in the hothouse of SCBU he lost body heat so quickly. I think that's a term trick that just doesn't work for prems.

Have you got the Medela leaflet on BF-ing prems? I got it when I ordered something through expressyourselfmums. It was pretty good, better than the Bliss stuff.

And congrats on your baby, prems are very very tough!