Trying to BF baby born at 35+4

[Sarahlouise86]

My DS arrived 10 days ago at 35+4. He was 4lbs15oz at birth so is small but apart from that and a week in hospital for jaundice, he is perfect.

I desperately want to breast feed him but he's just so sleepy and we have a feeding plan we must stick to (wake every 3 hours and feed X amount). I manage to express plenty of milk for him so he is taking that from the bottle, and the hospital advised that I put him on my boob before feeding where he will sickle a couple of times before giving up. Everyone keeps telling me it will take time for him to breastfeed but I'm concerned he's going to be so used to the bottle that it's never going to happen.

Does anyone have any tips or experience with this?? Ultimately I want him to be fed so will continue to express and bottle feed that for as long as I can but I'd love to BF him if I could.

Ds3 was born at 35+5, pretty poorly due to infection, had jaundice too, in SCBU for just over a week. He breast fed until he was 2.5.

I had the advantage of having fed two babies previously, so I knew I could do it.

If it’s feasible, can you spend a few days at home skin to skin? Feeding schedules are all well and good, but it may been he’s not getting particularly hungry, so then it’s hard for you to learn his hunger cues.

Is there a local La Leche League, it breastfeeding support group who you could call on for some support? It’s great that he’s latching on and having a bit of a feed! That’s very encouraging. Good luck.

DD was born at 33 +2. She was only in NICU for ten days and was 4.4 lbs, also with no health issues apart from jaundice. She was too small/tired to attempt much breastfeeding when she was in NICU. After a few days I just pumped (like you I had no problem expressing plenty of milk) and agreed to give her just EBM so she could gain weight and get out of there ASAP.

She was also drinking a bottle every three hours and this schedule continued for weeks when we came home too.

I thought it would be impossible to establish full breastfeeding from this, but eventually managed it. I found it took a lot of time/ patience and that I had to continue pumping for weeks whilst we got it fully established.

Obviously all babies are different so the way I did it may not work for you, but we began by just doing little ‘practice’ feeds (whilst maintaining her 3 hourly feed schedule with bottles). I then slowly transitioned her, week by week, until she was fully breastfed.

After being home for a couple of weeks (once she was a little bit bigger and stronger) i replaced one bottle of EBM with one breastfeed every single day. After a week or so of that we tried doing two full breastfeeds instead of two bottles every day for a week or so. (And so on).

I didn’t rush it because I worried about her getting overtired (she was so little and sleepy at first), so decided to try and build up to exclusive breastfeeding over a month or two. We probably could have done it more quickly tbh, but ultimately it worked.

She’s now eight months and still breastfed. The only downside is that at around six months she decided she didn’t want to drink from the bottle at all, so expressing is no longer an option!

It would have been easier not to bother, but the bigger and stronger she got the easier it became.

Good luck with it!

Hi, my DTs were 35+1 and 2w NICU, 7 with the outreach team - both fed intravenously in NICU ,.then on NG tubes for a bit. Both learnt to bf in time and fed till 10 mos when they decided to stop.

I made sure they got nutrition through EBM and some formula (prescribed) but introduced the breast gradually and persevered. They were both good feeders in the end!

Thank you very much for the replies. They definitely give me hope that we can transition to BF when the time is right. I had a visit from my health visitor last week who echoed what everyone here has said, we will be able to do it but it will take time. Her comment was also that as he's so small, his mouth included, he currently won't be able to get a proper suckle (not sure how true that is?!) and to continue offering the boob before the bottle but not expecting much until he gets bigger. We're almost back to our birth weight now🙌

I'm going to get in touch with La leche and get some advice about how best to do it as I feel at the minute we aren't progressing. He's just trying to suckle, gets tired so I put him on the bottle. That's a very helpful plan about how to gradually transition to one BF per day and then fully. I guess I first need to be confident he can get any milk from me, which unfortunately I don't think he can.

Thanks everyone 😊😊

I do! My daughter was born at 36 weeks a little over 6lb. She just didnt have the energy to breastfeed. I exclusively pumped for 6 weeks until she was about 8lb, then tried again and it worked! Taking a bottle did not stop her from learning to BF she just needed to get her energy up first.

So dont panic or stress yourself, keep pumping and try again in a few weeks

Hi oP, doubt he can't suckle - my son was tiny, I mean really little - and he could latch - but they get so tired they can't keep it up and they can actually use up more calories BFing than they take in.

I just did as a cuddly comfort thing at first, always made it a positive experience - and then it clicked. They both became very proficient feeders and fed till they decided to stop at nearly 1yo

I was worried about my prem having so many bottles when she first started to suck feed in NICU, at about 33 weeks. With my full term babies there was so much talk about not starting bottles too early, to avoid confusion, and refusing the breast. But prem babies are different. All of the babies in NICU have to have some bottles as they are without mum overnight, and most of the ones I knew took to the breast just fine.

I would aim to have baby feeding from the breast regularly by their due date. Imo this is when their little brains start to get opinions about what they prefer. With my dd we mixed breast and ebm for the first few months after due date, then gave up with the bottles as they were too much faff.

Oh, also I wasn’t sure how much my dd was getting from the breast at first as she seemed quicker and quieter than with the bottle. One of the nicu nurses put a syringe in her feeding tube and pulled out to show that her tummy was full of milk! They are so efficient on the breast, so don’t worry too much. It sounds like you’re doing all the right things.

A trick that worked for me and DD is start the feed with the bottle so baby gets a bit of energy and nourishment then quickly switch from bottle to breast.

DD struggled to latch for 3 weeks and this was the only way I could get her to breastfeed. Once she'd figured it out we stopped the bottle.

My 34 week baby was tube fed for two weeks then ebm bottle and breastfed. I used nipple shields to begin with but that was more down to an undiagnosed posterior tongue tie. The stronger and bigger he got the better the bf went. He breastfed until well over 2.

Yes, you can do this! I successfully BFed DD born at 35+2 and DS2 born at 33+4. DS2 especially I thought we'd never get there - he was also very sleepy and was.on and off an NG tube until 38 weeks gestational age, and we had to bottle feed him 8x a day at one stage.

Are you under a neonatal outreach team? IME the most difficult thing is the constant chopping and changing of plans you will get from different people. Some will tell you to offer breast each feed, some alternate feeds, some that 15 min BFing is "a full feed", some that you need to top up with bottle whatever. My advice is be pushy

• keep reminding whoever is giving you the feeding plans that you want to BF and ask what their plan is to enable you to transition to that. If it contradicts what a different professional said yesterday - point that out and ask for a consistent plan.

It absolutely can be done - DS2 was very slow to gain weight and had to be relentlessly topped up with EBM for several weeks, but I gradually reduced the number of bottles. Tried to keep one a day for convenience but by 3 months old he'd decided he'd had enough of that and became a resolute bottle refuser! (He's still happily BFing at 9 months).