Small baby born at 36 weeks - question

[Angeldelight21]

My dd was born a week ago at 36 weeks due to placenta issue/ preeclampsia/ reduced growth. She is perfectly formed but very tiny (1750g) and we are still in the Neonatal unit due to her weight.

My only worry is that she sleeps all the time and she might latch for a couple of minutes only a day if I'm lucky. Will the sleepiness pass at all? Even during the pregnancy I did hardly feel her moving and was always worried if something was wrong.

I'm wondering if somebody had a similar experience with their baby and when was the feeding established?

Yes my son was like this and he was term but a bit jaundice. Are you breastfeeding? The feeding team suggested to me to swirl my finger round the top of his head when I fed and it seemed to encourage him to keep drinking and not fall asleep.

Definitely don't be afraid to ask the team there for advice with feeding. There should be someone to help you.

Oh I hope you are both doing okay. Please ask the neonatal nurses and voice your concerns to them, is she being tube fed also as she’s obviously not feeding great atm? My 3rd was born at 37 weeks and extremely sleepy/wouldn’t feed- he had severe jaundice and almost needed a blood transfusion. Once he was treated in hospital and we were allowed home he slowly improved with feeding/ less sleepy. Hope you are both okay x

Congrats on the new addition

DS was born 36+2 and was super sleepy the first couple of weeks. In my experience he had the early newborn sleepiness but also was extra sleepy from being a little early as well (which I got told was normal). But he soon found his voice!

We ended up combi feeding and then moving to formula feeding as he struggled to latch and then had super bad reflux which needed anti reflux formula and gaviscon, so sadly I don't have too much experience on that front.

Yes! My dd was the same and only I saw her lovely dark eyes for about 3 weeks! She acted like she was still in the womb and used to sort of swim with her hand. Tiny feeds but after about 10 days she sort of woke up. Now she is extremely noisy!

My DD was born at 36 weeks (1610grams, IUGR) and she slept an awful lot for the first 4 weeks. When I took her home, they told me to wake her every 4 hours around the clock for feeds if she didn’t wake herself (I was formula feeding), after about 4 weeks she started waking 3 hourly herself so fed on demand.

Congratulations

It will pass.
She's a little early and a little small so sleeping helps her grow by preserving her calories. On our nnu we put to babies to breast if they show feeding cues and tube feed if they aren't ready.
Lots of skin to skin will help with bonding, milk production and help her to establish breast feeding.
She just needs time.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

She is currently being tube fed but I was hoping to be able to breastfeed her.

We have tested for jaundice but it was all clear.

I did ask the team if its normal but all what they said is that maybe because she is small, but it just doesn't sound reassuring.

You should be able to breast feed. Put her to the breast first if she's awake and then they can top her up with the tube.
Even a few sucks at the breast is beneficial and she will build up as she gets bigger and stronger.

My baby was born at 39 weeks and sleepy to start. We found undressing her/doing a nappy change before each feed to wake her up helped the most.

Dd2 was 2lb 11 and born 10 weeks early.
She was sleepy for months and I had to wake her to feed her.
She is now 25 and eats like a horse😃
Congratulations

I agree with the advice above to talk very openly to the neonatal nurses about your concerns, but my teeny baby (induced at '37' weeks, but it was probably nearer 35, and I'd been ill so she was well below the growth charts for full term babies) was very sleepy. She was on formula because I was unwell and has thrived but it took a long time for her to leave that very sleepy newborn stage - certainly 6-8 weeks, I'd say. Whereas my DS was an 8lb baby born at 42 weeks, and he seemed to be much less groggy from the start.

I had 2 at 34 weeks , very little sucking reflex, initially they were tube fed. any attempt to breastfeed was hampered by tiny head and tiny mouth and massive boobs , also every time we attempted to bf they would just go straight to sleep as all warm and cosy, and early
Babies sleep A LOT.
We would rub: irritate their feet m, strip them off a bit to cool them off wake them up and would feed them sort of sitting up and rubbing / lifting the chin to encourage swallowing whilst bottle feeding , have the nurses showed you ? There is a sort of technique we were taught .
In the end I went for bottle feeding as we weren’t allowed to go home until feeding was established .
She will definitely wake up eventually and be necking her feeds but could take several weeks. I had to wake one of mine up every 2 hours day and night for quite some time, it took over an hour for each feed as well , fun times !! Congratulations on your baby!

Mine was 35 weeks and very very sleepy. She wouldn't latch at all so I expressed for a while and they tube fed her.

She ended up being fine and definitely found her voice! I never really got to breast feed properly though. Don't put too much pressure on yourself for that.

Completely normal.
I really struggled to get established breast Feeding with my daughter (even though I fed my son for 14 months)
My daughter was born at 36+3 and weighed 5lb 5oz same issues with growth.
I couldnt get her to latch for more than 2 mins before she fell asleep.
They told me to pump, offer breast then top up with formula.
had a big disagreement with the midwifes on the ward, when she was finally out of nicu and on the ward with me , 3 days after being born, they wanted her to feed for 15 mins straight before discharging me, even though we'd been signed off by the nicu feeding team with the above plan. Totally unrealistic.
Of course I fought it and made then discharge me, the attitude was terrible.
For a first time mum this would have been awful and in the end i had to say I'd formula feed for them to discharge me.
Completely went against the advice from nicu team.

Finally got home and carried on with the nicu feeding team plan, and unfortunately formula took over as she was sleepy for a long time (with jaundice) and I couldn't manage to keep up the pumping with a 2 year old at home too.

Have you a nicu feeding specialist, they are so helpful.

Hi, and congratulations on your lovely new little girl! My daughter was born at 36+2 (gestational diabetes, ICP and preeclampsia), and she was also very sleepy, although just avoided SCBU at 1.8kg. I found the sleepiness lasted for 2/3 weeks, near enough to her proper due date then she perked up a bit. Even full term newborns sleep loads though, so it's a gradual waking up thing.

If she's got a nasal tube for feeding right now, one thing you could try as a bridge is finger feeding, where you tape the wee tube to your finger and she can suck on your finger to help build up the sucking muscles while still getting milk relatively easily. We did it with our daughter and it helped a lot as even once we started breastfeeding, she didn't have the energy for more than about 5-10 minutes at a run before nodding off, so she'd have breast, then expressed milk from the finger feed for the first 2/3 weeks I think breastfeeding.support/what-is-finger-feeding/

We did that as part of a feeding plan from the NICU outreach team once back home, where we fed her every three hours round the clock. This was absolutely exhausting so do draft in family support etc if at all available. Good luck!

Yes my baby was born at 36 weeks, she wasn’t small but she was very very sleepy, basically she slept the whole day and night apart from when she fed. It was impossible to breastfeed her because she would only latch for a few seconds before falling asleep so I bottle fed her expressed milk until she was back at birth weight and could feed on demand then swapped over to breast, thankfully she took the breast fine then. I’d say she was super sleepy for about the first 4/5 weeks and then gradually got better very slowly, she is now 19 weeks and my naps are hard won now 😂

Yes very normal! I had a small baby -5lb 10 at 39 weeks- who was very jaundiced and it took about a week to get going at all and she was still sleepy for another 2. Nappy changes, a cool wipe of the face with a flannel and breast compressions all worked. She did have some cup feeding for a few days which seemed to give her more energy to try and lift the jaundice. It's ok to have a hybrid approach at first, it doesn't mean the end of BF.

I had a growth restricted baby at 36w. He was very very sleepy until his due date then for another fortnight after (my full term normal weight daughter was sleepy for just a fortnight).
I kept him in a cloth sling (there are special ways to tie it for premies) basically all the time he wasn’t feeding.
You need a different approach to establish bfing compared with a full term baby but it can work very well. I brought him home weighing 4 lb but 3 months later he was 14 lb and 96th percentile on breastmilk alone aside from three bottles of formula given in the first two weeks.
He was a couple of months behind until he walked at 14 months and at 2 years was ahead.

My DD was born at 34 weeks and think we saw her with eyes open maybe once in the 2 weeks she was in SCBU. when we got her home she just slept and slept too for about 2 weeks. The nurses told me this was normal for that gestation.

All 4 of my dc have been born between 30-35 weeks. Have they offered a cup feed? Or a nipple dummy?

I think this is normal for prem babies. My godson was born at 34 weeks. He was in NICU for about 8 weeks because he had problems with his lungs. He slept ALL THE TIME - we barely saw him with his eyes open, and even once he was being fed orally (bottle fed) it was a fight to keep him awake. On precisely his due date, my friend came back after a shower and walked into the NICU reception area to hear a baby making the most unholy racket - she joked to a nurse "I'm glad I'm not taking that one home!" and the nurse said "Well, we don't want him!" He had just suddenly woken up and found his voice and never shut up again from that day forward! He's always been a good sleeper, but probably because he literally does not stop moving and talking all day long!

Yes it’s normal, my first baby was born at 35 weeks and was very very sleepy. We’d have to tickle his feet to wake him but he wouldn’t feed for long (I was breastfeeding). The sleepiness eventually wore off at around 6 weeks- I started topping up with formula at this point though as he wanted to feed every 40 minutes and I struggled. He’s always had a big appetite and is as tall as me now!

Ds was born full term but had to be resuscitated and had high co2 levels so had a nicu stay for around a week.
He was also super sleepy and wouldn't latch. I pumped and he was cup fed some times. I also used nipple shields which we were given in nicu and used until I think 7 months. We fed for 13 months in total.
Tbh he was a very sleepy baby, apparently much more than is normal, although I didn't know that at the time. He slept or fed pretty much constantly until around 2 months. He's now 4 and still naps around 3 days a week and sleeps at least 11 hours a night so possibly he just needs a lot of sleep

Yes my first baby was born at 37 weeks and was just under 6lb and very sleepy. Had to change her nappy to wake her for a feed. Even then she would fall back asleep and couldn’t latch properly due to big boobs and tiny baby mouth.
I expressed milk and fed her via bottles for a while. By about 6 weeks it was easier.
best of luck and congratulations on the birth of your baby xxx

No proper medical advice, but I am sure your neonatal team will be able to answer all your questions properly. In my experience, they are absolutely amazing.
My son was born at 32 weeks weighting 1.1kg. Don't worry about latching/breastfeeding as it's just something that comes naturally when they develop, it just takes time. The closer they get to their due date the more they'll learn how to do it. Again, the nurses should be able to help you with the correct latching, position etc.
At first they just suck for few minutes, but it's very hard work for them as they don't have enough strenght. But you have to keep going and try at every possible feed when you are there. Slowly they'll stay on for longer and longer and need less and less tube feed. As she's already 36 weeks this will happen very soon!
About being sleepy, I don't want to say for sure as only the doctors know, but mine was sleeping most of the time as all the other babies in the NICU.