Trying to BF after time spent in special care unit.

[SmudgeBanana]

DS was born slightly prem at 36 weeks by emergency CS due to pre eclampsia. He spent just under 2 weeks in SCBU due to not feeding properly. I had no skin to skin time with him after he was born. He was tube fed for his first feed which I wasn't made aware of until I was allowed to see him the next day. He has since been tube and bottle fed while in care (EBM and Formula).

Now he's home I have tried to BF, he seems to latch on fine, sucks for a few minutes then stops, we do this for a good half hour, with him definitely getting some milk. It's very frustrating for both of us as I have to make sure he keeps his weight up I am having to top up with a bottle feed of EBM. I am producing plenty of milk, as have been pretty much expressing exclusively, he just doesn't seem to have got the hang of going from bottle to breast.

I'm hoping someone has some experience or some advice as I would love to be able to BF him. Any help or advice is very much appreciated!

I had a similar experience except DS didn't encounter a boob for nearly a week I found the local bf support service was really helpful,they spent a long time trying to get us going, good luck, you are already doing better than we ever managed!

Hi Smudge

How long have you been attempting bf since he came home? I didn't attempt bf straightaway with DS (born at 31+5), so when we did start, it took him a while to get the hang of it - I reckon it was a week until he was feeding "properly".

Would you be able to get a breastfeeding counsellor round to support you?

Good luck, I'm sure he will get the hang of it

My dd was born prem, and spent 6 weeks on nnicu. She too was tube fed ebm and formula. I was told she was too weak to be able to suck for long without getting tired. We never managed to get her exclusively onto the breast, but we did persevere and she was 70 percent breastfed, up to 2 years old, and 30 percent out of a cup/bottle. I did hire a good pump from le leche league. With us, it was just a case of lots of skin to skin time - just getting into bed, and having a it of a "babymoon" together, and working on getting a good latch.

I got fantastic support from le leche league, and can throughly recommend calling them for some support and advice. Can you try a cup rather than a bottle? It was a while ago but the back to nature bottles seemed to make it easier for her to make the switch from bottle to breast, though we did fail to become exclusively breast fed.

Good luck. I do know how traumatic it is, and how you only want to do the very best for them. Make sure you get some rest. I ended up pumping and feeding, pumping and feeding in an endless soul destroying round when I might have been better off giving her some formula instead.

Well done for persevering!

Oh I feel for you. I had prem DTs, same sort of scenario, tube feeds with formula until my milk came in then tube feeds with expressed milk. I didn't try them on the breast until about 6 days old. When they came home at 3 weeks some feeds were ok and some were so incredibly frustrating. There was head shaking, head bobbing general messing about on the boob.

I have no magic advice but just to persevere, persevere, persevere.

Just keep latching him on, he just needs tons of practice. I found if we were getting really frustrated we would all get so hot, bothered and hysterical, then my DH would feed them expressed milk in a bottle and slowly but surely less bottles and more boob.

I second the tomeetipee back to nature bottles.

I also second a babymoon. Take to your bed with a mag, drink, cake and baby (not in that order . Try feeding lying down. Look here Look at the biological nursing link.

Loads of luck to you.

Thank you all, spoke to my HV yesterday and she's advised as you all have to just keep on keeping on! It does feel like all i'm doing is trying to feed, then expressing and feeding with a bottle, then trying to feed again. It's like a never ending circle.

I'm using MAM bottles as I have been told that they are a good shape to help with combi feeding. I tried cup feeding, but where he was so used to being tube fed it was hard enough to get him to take a bottle, and he flat out refuses to take cup feeds. DS is only 2 weeks old, so have been told to treat him as a day old baby and just keep him trying.

I'm sure i'll be back with more frustration! His latch is absolutely fine, he just needs to work out that it's a different sucking action to the bottle. He tries so hard, but just doesn't get enough to keep him full. Wish me luck! It's so lovely to hear that other people have had the same sort of issues and that you've all had various levels of success. I didn't get to see a BF specialist at the hospital as she was more concerned with the other parents who were with their baby's on the ward, so will try and contact le leche league.

You've been given loads of good advice, and I don't have much to add. Just wanted to say that at 2wo my non-prem non-scbu DS really hadn't got the whole BF-ing thing. Advice is generally to expect it to take 4-6 weeks for BF to be established and this was certainly true for us. You could give one of the telephone helplines a call if you're still concerned? You'll get to speak to a trained BFCounsellor who would hopefully reassure you.

Redkites, thank you! I had been told that all newborns should be established by 2/2.5 weeks if BFing is suitable for them. Seems I've been given some poor information by a couple of professionals.

You could also try the [[http://www.nuk.co.uk/products/bottles/nuk_firstchoice/productdetail/?p=10.120.006

My lo had tongue tie so we didn't start breastfeeding until he was 4.5wo until then it was a mixture of expressed breast milk and ff but we're now, at 11wks completely on breast. Although he wasn't a premie I had emcs complications and so didn't get any skin to skin for 4 hrs.

Just keep persevering - one thing that helped us make the transition was nipple shields (although I know they're not everyone's cup of tea). As soon as he was diagnosed with tongue tie at 3 weeks we moved on to them and then once he'd had his procedure I used them just at the start of every feed, moving him on to just my nipple when he took a rest. Then just first thing in the morning when I had an over supply - now we don't use them at all. I felt it gave him the familiarity of the bottle whilst getting him used to bring at the boob and stopped all the head bobbing etc

Oh and go to a milk clinic and see a breastfeeding councillor - we live in London and there is some sort of clinic in the local area everyday - your Hv should be able to tell you. I don't know what I would have done without their support and of course reading the feeding threads on mumsnet to know I wasn't alone and it wasn't too late!

My DS didn't 'get' bfing till he was term plus 1.5 weeks. That meant 4 weeks tube feeding whilst in SCBU then 4 weeks EBM from bottles. Then suddenly, he got it. We bfed till he was 12mo.

DD3 was fed through a NG tube for the first 5 days of her life and quite simply had no interest in breastfeeding when she was not even hungry. She was born full term mind you. In the end her paed told the nurses to take her off the glucose drip so that she would get hungry, and I started feeding her before they nurses gave her my milk down the tube. They also took to rubbing some on her gums so that she got the taste for it. TBH though she didn't really start feeding properly until I got her home. She didn't lose any birth weight until she was over a week old! Lost about 8oz and then took till 21 days to regain her birth weight.

DS was kept in scbu because he'd lost just over his 10% birth weight so it's important he's feeding well. I will look into shields as a transitional measure and will try and find local BFing support.

He seems to be doing a little better each day, it just feels like a step backwards every time the top up amount is slightly higher than it usually is.