When did your prem baby get to come home?

[SunOverStars]

Just had DC1, a boy, he was 32+5 although is listed as 32+1 on all his paperwork from today.

He weighed 4lb 14oz (HUGGGGGGGGGGE for this age probably due to gestational diabetes) and is on CPAP at the minute.

I know it's impossible to predict when he will get to come home - really hoping by Christmas - but would love to hear when your premmies got to come home and their gestation/weight at birth. Thanks all

Wooo Hooo Congratulations!

DS2 was three weeks early and weighed a whopping 8 pounds 12 ounces, he would not feed and had extremely low blood sugar so had to be tube fed. He as in there for six days, the first 2-3 were very hard as not much progress was made, but days 3-6 he made massive progress and on day six he pulled out his feeding tube and started to be bottle fed, he took 3 bottles over the day and pooed and wee'd properly and was allowed to go home. I expressed and a couple of weeks later he was able to breast feed.

He did look somewhat out of place in the unit being so large, the hardest thing was to leave him at night, I sobbed all the way home. My other DS was 5 at the time and was so lovely to me it made me cry even more. When I had just had him, I did stay over for three nights and it was brilliant, tender, loving care the night staff gave to all the babies, telling them how lovely they were and how well they were doing, singing to them etc etc.

Try not to focus on the 'home for Christmas thing' just take each day as it comes and really take this time to look after you as well, so when he does come home you are well.

Well done once again!

Hi, congratulations!

My DTs were 3lb and 4lb2oz born at 33+1. They didn't need any oxygen, just warmth and food, through nasal tubes. Came home just over 3 weeks later, still at 3 something and 4 something lbs.

Agree with carocaro, don't get too fixed on Christmas. It would be lovely but you don't want to set yourself up for disappointment. I bet SCBU is pretty special during the Christmas period, all festive and full of good feelings - and warm!

Fill your freezer with food ready for his arrival home and take lots of care of yourself.

When DD1 was born (at 33+4) they advised us not to expect to take her home until her due date.

However, like your DS, she was also a healthy weight (4lb 11oz) and stayed in SCBU for 3 weeks in total, so we had her home a month before her due date.

Good luck! And go easy on yourself - it's a bigger shock than you realise at the time (or it was for me!)

DD1 will be 8 in early January and you'd never know now that she had been a premmie. There was snow on the ground the day we brought her home too !

My DD1 was born at 32+1 and weighed 3lb 10oz. She had other complications which involved major surgery and her total stay in hospital was 5 weeks. Once she had recovered from her op we were told we could bring her home when she hit 4lbs.

She's now 12 and no residual health issues. Just like any other 12 year old :)

Congratulations

I agree take each day as it comes. My DS was born at 29+3 and we were told to expect him home on his due date. He was ventilated, then cpap, then just needed to get bigger.

He eventually came home at exactly 37 weeks. He nearly came home two weeks earlier but then couldn't maintain his temperature. The docs always said work towards them coming home on the due date, and most babies do come home somewhere between 37 and 42 weeks (the equivalent of term), and with DS and my friends babies that's a good rule of thumb.

Thank you all for your experiences. Just came back from seeing him - he is off the CPAP, breathing on his own, and they gave him his first milk feed (a whole 4 droplets!!) but he sucked it himself from a newborn size teat

We are so so happy. They have said that hopefully he can come home around the 35-week mark, so about 3 weeks... maybe in time for christmas. Trying not to set myself up for disappointment but would be lovely

You should aim for due date and anything before will be a bonus.

My first premature baby was born at 34+0 and was home one week later, but only because i really, really insisted and discharged against medical advice. She weighed 4lbs 7oz.

My next ones were twins who were born at 28+2 and were in for 10 weeks so came home at 38 weeks.

Next was a 27 weeker who was also in for 10 weeks so came home at 37 weeks.

Finally i had twins at 23 weeks who came home 4 days after due date.

Also, hospitals don't tell you this, but if the only thing keeping him in hospital is feeding, and you feel confident, you can insist on being discharged with a feeding tube. You will be assigned a community nurse who will be on hand to help. This is what i did with one of my twins as i was so desperate after 17 weeks to be home. As it turned out, he pulled the tube out within a day or two and coped perfectly well with bottles all the time. Sometimes at home you will have more time to teach them these things than the nurses in hospital do.

Geepers how did you convince the hospital to discharge your first one against medical advice? They have told us if he feeds well it won't be too long, we are both very experienced with newborns and would feel confident handling him and dealing with him in a week or so...

I basically told them i was taking her and that was that. She was feeding well, hadn't needed a top up through her tube for two or three days and i knew she was fine. We were breastfeeding and i was with her on the ward full time, plus she was baby number four for me, but my first premature one, so i had breastfed and cared for babies before and knew we would be okay.

Although hospital doctors and nurses are the experts i am a firm believer that i know my baby better than anyone else and they will often needlessly err on the side of caution. It all comes down to how assertive you feel.

DS born at 35 weeks exactly, weight 4lb 5oz at birth. We left 13 days later when he weighed just under 5lb.

Never spoke to a doctor the whole time until one said we could go home. We had to leave the room when they did ward rounds. Rubbish communication. Nurses wouldn't say either.

They wanted to wait until he was BFing on demand and gaining weight without the NG tube.

We roomed in down the corridor with him on the Friday night and left Sat morning.

Ds born at 27 weeks weight under 1 kg was in hospital for 115 days including Christmas and new year.
Before discharge from hospital they are looking for several key things.

1. Being able to breathe on their own (sometimes dischrage with oxygen is possible)
2. feeding well and putting on weight
3. being able to regulate their own temperature.
4. stable blood sugar level.

A lot of babies were discharged just before Christmas and my dd was one of the few left BUT she was also one of the smallest! They had Christmas stockings with presents for the babies and it was quite nice but would have preferred to be at home.

Hope your son is home soon - sounds as if he is doing really well !

DS was a 26 weeker (weighed just over 2lb) and was discharged after 10 weeks, a month before his due date. At that point he only weighed 3lb 8oz, wasn't really maintaining his temperature properly, and still had his ng tube in place!

But although it was terrifying, in retrospect he really was better off at home. He was only on 4-hourly obs in hospital, and putting on weight very poorly because he wanted more milk than they were putting down his ng tube, plus I was transitioning to breastfeeding and they seemed to think that a 4-hourly schedule was acceptable for a miniscule breastfed baby! We lived over an hour away, had a toddler at home and were at the end of our tether.

Once we'd got him home, we could smother him in blankets and take his temp just as well as the nurses, and what's more we did it more often than every 4 hours! He went from a cold clinical hospital ward to a cosy living room where he spent most of his time on our chest with his big sister whirling around him. We fed him as often as he wanted and put as much milk down his tube as he could take without throwing it up!!

He didn't look back! He ditched the ng tube after a fortnight at home, has been fully breastfed on demand ever since and has followed his growth curve beautifully. He's now 10 weeks corrected, has been discharged from the neonatal consultant and is doing wonderfully. It was stressful having him home that early, I won't deny it, but absolutely worth it. We essentially stayed in 'hospital mode' for the first month at home (no going out, no visitors).

We were lucky in that we'd been moved halfway through from big teaching hospital near our house to small local hospital an hour away (due to lack of beds), and essentially the local hospital said 'well we wouldn't let him go home now if you lived locally, but he meets the criteria of big teaching hospital (who had good community support team)'. Then when we got home, big teaching hospital said 'well we wouldn't have let him home'.

So essentially, trust your instincts! Once all the hospital are doing is basic nursing care, rather than life-saving medical support, then you can do it better than they can. It gets to the point where you know your baby better than the nurses, however lovely they are, who only see them for random shifts once in a while.

Very much hope you are home in time for Xmas!

Nine and a half weeks early no major problems but jaundice and an infection -one blood transfusion made it home after 5 and a half weeks---best of luck

Thanks all for your stories.

He is doing so well really - came out of his incubator now as is maintaining his own temperature and is in an open cot. On 41mL every 3 hours.

However, he is extremely lazy with sucking, can't get a proper latch on the bottle, and just lets it lay in his mouth messing around with half-sucks. Doctor said it's very common in boys, and means he will not be home for another 2.5-4 weeks

My little man was 13 weeks early, 1lb 4oz and came home after just over five months (22 weeks). But it was breathing that held him back and your DS has no such problems! I hope he gets the hang of feeding and comes home soon.

But... we brought our son home in January and spent Christmas in SCBU. It was frustrating because he was so close(relatively) to being ready for home and we knew it. But it was special in its own way, there were decorations and we got cards from some of his 'roomies'. And this year is going to be even more special because it's his first Christmas at home.

Congratulations on your son. I hope he has a smooth journey from now on.

You will probably find that one day feeding just clicks and he willmsuddenly be able to do it with no problem.

I had twins at 27+6 and they were in hospital for 8 weeks and 5 days, so they came home at the equivalent of 36+4. They told us when they were first born to aim for their due date and anything before that was a bonus. I think it makes you take it a day at a time.

he sounds like he's doing really well.

In our case, the babies had to be maintaining their temperature, feeding and gaining weight. In my personal experience, the staff were amazing - they are more than conscious that you want to get your babies home so I don't think they keep babies for the sake of it. They always told me that they would come on leaps and bounds when we got them home (which they did) but I was more than willing to listen to their advice about when they were ready to come home. I wouldn't push it, obviously I don't know your circumstances, but for us, we needed to be confident that the medical staff were confident that they were well enough to come home.

mandy

I had dd at 30+5 and she came home 5 weeks later. She weighed 3lb 10oz at birth, though lost a pound the following week. She had CPAP for a couple of days. The feeding took some time to establish. She was being fed ebm via ng tube. Eventually they suggested cup feeding but she didn't really get the hang of it and I found it fiddly. I asked for her to be bottle fed - they weren't keen because they like to encourage bf and felt that would be the end of bf. Ha! Dd was bf for almost 11 months Anyway, once she started bottle feeding things progressed pretty quickly and she was home within a fortnight
Congrats on your baby boy and hope he is home before xmas/new year

Congrats, hope your lil man is doing well. My fella was born at 30 + 4 due to IUGR and was a teeny 895g. He was released 4 days after his due date and he was 10 weeks in total in hospital.

My daughter was born at 34 weeks, she was only 2lb 15oz and was home 22 days later xx

ds1 3.5 lbs at 33 wks in hosp for 4 weeks came home 4lb 12oz