Establishing bottle feeds prem baby

[MrsF1989]

Hello,

We are trying to establish full bottle feeding with our prem baby (with my expressed milk), she seems to have 24/48 hours where she needs minimal top ups via tube followed by 24 hours with several tube top ups. This is the last thing we are waiting on before she can be allowed home... anyone had anything similar where it feels like its taking forever? And any tips on what we can do to help her along? When we ask the docs/nurses they always say she will do it in her own time, which I know is true but we want to help her as much as possible.

She is 40 weeks corrected on 18th and was born at 31+2, still on oxygen (will be coming home on oxygen, which js all sorted). Any stories or tips would be appreciated xxx

One of my twins came home with the NG as a similar thing was happening and it was the only reason she was still in hospital. To be honest things went backwards at home, ended up almost solely tube feeding for a while until we bit the bullet after a couple of months and just took the tube out. They need to feel hungry, it was the only motivator for her. To be honest she never loved milk and we weaned early. At 13 months corrected now she loves her food but has barely had any milk for the last 4 months. They just need to get a bit bigger so they can cope with longer stretches without food- they will eat once they are hungry enough!

I was in this situation OP and it was so frustrating. I wasn't able to be with her 24/7 and I used to groan when I'd ring in the early morning to be told by the night nurses "oh, she was sleeping so peacefully, we popped that feed down the tube" because that meant at least another 48 hours before she was allowed to be discharged.

In the end it just clicked. She pulled the tube out herself and the nurse said "well, shall we just leave it for now and see how she does?" and from then on she drank like a trooper. Began demanding feeds well before she was "due". Nurse said "yup, she's ready" and spoke to the doctor and DD was discharged within 36 hours of her last tube feed.

She was born at 33+1 and discharged after 20 days (36+0).

Hi OP, totally agree on your frustration here. DS was born at 34+1 10 weeks ago and was in the NICU for 2 weeks. We pushed on the bottle feeding and I’m sure that if we hadn’t, it would have been longer to get him out of there. He also pulled his tube out 4 times in the 2 week period. First week he was there he definitely needed to be tube fed but we were keen to try him on the bottle.
They asked us to bring in the bottle / teat that we’d be using at home so he could get used to it while in hospital so it wasn’t then a surprise when we got home which worked well. Making sure that baby is actually hungry too will help as she’ll be more inclined to take the bottle then rather than have a half hearted attempt and need a top up from the tube….so might be worth trying to stretch her out a bit of medically that’s ok to.

My brother was premature & my mum had a struggle to get him to take a bottle when he came home until the midwife told my mum to buy some different bottles with a different teat that altered the flow of milk. Once he got those he never looked back, he was born at 34+5 on 17 March weighing just under 4lb, he came home a month later weighing 5lb & when he was christened at the end of July weighed 20lb. My advice would be have a selection of different flow teats until you find one that works for you both.