tiktok, bfing gurus, bfers, interested parties of all creed and colour... heyulp! bfing a preemie baby... top tips please

[Aitch]

don't know where to start, really...

dd is two weeks old today (blimey) and put on her birthweight on wednesday so that's great. however of course she didn't start putting on weight until her formula top-ups, topping up with ebm didn't do the trick.

her weight gain today was only 30g (last few times has been double that or more) and i do put that down to the fact that i've been pumping more and therefore have been giving her more ebm top-ups than formula.

question is... what's the tipping point? she is gaining, i am producing more milk (not heaps, but volume-wise we are on target for the SCBU calculations). we were told to give dd 280mls per day in top-ups as well as bf, but with the formula it's been more like 350ml.

so do i accept the 'slow' weight gain and think of dd's longer-term benefits having protected my supply, or do i want her on formula but with more energy to feed, iyswim?

midwife has suggested one top-up of formula, and at the next topping-up with ebm, this seems like a reasonable compromise to me, but am i missing something.

I was just wondering, how much formula is she getting at the mo? ie, how many calories is she getting that way? If it's not a lot, then maybe it doesn't make much difference how she's getting those calories. I can imagine it might be a more important decision for a very tiny, very prem baby who's still too young to take much milk, than for a growing girl like dd2.

Agree with CMOT, especially about weighing less often. Could you persuade the midwife to check her over as often as she likes, but not weigh her every time?

Am not ignoring you from now on by the way - it's just gone midnight, have been asleep already and only got up to take some gaviscon!

will catch up in the am when hopefully more with-it, good luck today

zzzzzzzzzzz

1.96kg up 90g from friday's weigh-in.
mw was interested in the other stuff, will speak to paed about it she says, and has said to keep pumping and see how i feel about reducing formula offering. of the 330 ml of top ups she had yesteday 100 were formula.
hadn't thought about hand expressing, thanks for the tip as i can see what you mean cmot.

oh and BUUUUUURP to welliemum. [ranitidine]

Excellent news

Your norks seem more than capable lady!

Aitch, I haven't had a prem baby but I had 3 dcs who were very slow to regain their birthweights - I think it took at least 5-6 weeks for each of them to get above their initial weights. The older 2 ended up having formula top ups because of it - the 3rd one I was much better informed and he was solely bf.

Obviously with her being prem there is even more pressure to get the weight on her but I definitely think there's a lot of truth in you saying you have slow gaining babies.

Welliemum, I think the local hospital must have read that because I?m quoting it without ever hearing about it all the time! Those policies were very important when Tink was in, they wouldn?t even let me joke about bottles (I begged one day because I?d had enough and wanted to go home, but they told me off - nicely - because they knew I didn?t want that).

Aitch, I agree with much of what has been said here, especially welliemum?s post. Feed your daughter when she?s hungry, let her have as much or as little as she wants. It is tiring but it doesn?t take long for them to get it. Tink went from a supplemented feed (really a dummy breastfeed because they gave her a full NG feed after) a day; to one unsupplemented one day; two the next; and taking the breast full time at 34 weeks. In the first few days she had two feeds where she obviously wanted a feed but she wasn?t strong enough. Are they following her weight in the Red Book or on a premature breastfed baby chart? I didn?t even know it existed until I took her for her hospital appointment and it looked so much healthier than the Red Book!

Have you looked into support groups at all?

WRT to skinnier, prem babies don?t have much fat stores so they do tend to be skinnier, especially in the face. I?ll email you the link to my photos so you can see how Tink was in the early days.

Aitch, great news on the weight gain. 90g in 3 days is mahoosive for such a little person. Will they leave you alone for a week now? I second all that TinkerbellesMum says, plus if you have got the formula top-up down to 100ml then that is a total of 67cal approx she is getting from formula compared to 67*3.3 say 200 from the EBM top-ups plus whatever she is getting straight from the tap so to speak. She will get so much stronger over the next days and weeks.

(PS- nice weight - it was DD's weight at discharge at 35+6 and eight weeks old )

Fantastic weight gain.

100ml of formula isn't much is it - I assumed she was getting loads more than that. So clearly that's not where the weight gain is coming from!

Now that you know she's gaining well, what are your thoughts?

Aitch - I've just scanned through this thread. Keep going at it girl - it sounds like you're doing just great! And you've got some great advisers on this thread. I really hope it all works out for you this time. Twink xx

me too twink.

well let's just say that dd hasn't had any formula since the madwife left, wellie. just ebm top-ups and bfs. truthfully, though, i don't think she's had as much volume so i will revise that if i think she's tiring.

LOL @ "madwife"

glad to see you've got yer hoover by the way. is it the ball one?

Nope, but they are cool

I've got a dyson baby allergy. Its farking ace!

i do pmsl at the advert. it's virtually impossible to turn a corner? really, jimbo?

oh it's great for lightweights like me though. Have you actually tried one? Honestly really - the difference is huge - you just dont notice. It's like going from 'normal' steering to power steering.

And, have you seen the Airblade handryers? they are an absolute revelation....!

Hi Aitch,

I know zilch about preemies but just wanted to YAY! for doing such a brilliant job with it all.

A big YAY from me too.
Well done, girl!!!
Feel proud, feel very proud.

Good god- how long have I been away? Didn't even know you were expecting!

Aitch - hearty and amazed congratulations on your dd2! I haven't been on MN in ages but when I saw this I had to post.

I know nothing of preemies of course (babycarrot came 3 weeks early so technically term) but I will never forget the sodding desperation of the scales. I wish with every bit of might I possess that you get out of this pressured time quickly and on to enjoying your baby.

Lie down naked with her snuggled on your boob for as much of each day and night as your life can allow, then strap her on to you in a sling like a piece of body adornment and wear her the rest of the time.

How are you bearing up?

i'm bearing up fine, thanks (apart from the flashbacks ) and am on every galactologue known to man...

have been pumping less (not by design, but because i fell ASLEEP! twice. gawd, i wish this child would just suck it out of me and have done with it. i'll hopefully be looking for tips on feeding lying down soon.

wouldn't get too proud, moony, am still in the early and infinitely fuckuppable stages of all this. am trying to tail off the formula but unless i pump then i don't htink i'll have enough.

I think that it's fantastic that you are managing to breast feed a prem baby, ds was too weak and tired too easily to breast feed very much at all, I expressed and did a bit of bf exclusively until 10 weeks at which point my supply gave out. Up to that point we resisted calls for formula,. The neo natal nurse who came to the house pushed formula every time and drove us mad but the nice health visitor said that as long as baby was gaining some weight and was not crashing down the charts then to keep going with what we wanted to do. I also refused to get ds weighed regularly after 8 weeks. When people stopped coming to my house to weigh him I didn't go and get him weighed unless I had any concerns about growth. He was born on the 50th centile, dropped right off that within the first few days as he was intubated in a forced coma and not sleeping at all but he got back to 50th and has pretty much stayed on that both when bm fed and when ff. Basically what I am trying to say is that as long as your dd is healthy and gaining weight then I wouldn't worry too much. I got some really good advice on here at the time too which kept me going.