Please tell me it gets better premature baby born 33 weeks + 1 day

[Lizzyloo22x]

My son was due 11th April but was born on 22nd febuary. We spent 4 weeks in NICU he is growing well however we have issues with reflux,pooing and wind and struggle to lay down any part of the day. Please tell me it gets better i'm loosing my mind. We have been to the doctors many time. We are on cow and gate milk. Multi vitamin iron due to being early we are also now on omeprazole and lactulose and still stuggling.

My neighbour and also a friend both have very prem babies 2 years ago, neighbours boy was 29 weeks, friends twins 28 weeks. All the babies will be 2 this summer - they are thriving, meeting all their milestones and doing well.
Just remember, your baby will only be 6 weeks old if going by their due dates, and it will take a while longer for things to settle down. Have a chat with your Health Visitor who should be able to support you.

Hi,

my granddaughter was born at 32+ 5 days. She has breathing and stomach problems but these resolved and we know have a gorgeous 5’ 7” 17 year old . The early weeks/months are stressful but hang in there

My first born waS 34 weeks, born early due to heart issues and was in intensive care for eight weeks.

Feeding was difficult, struggled quite a bit, sleeping patterns also hard

I think what you have to say to yourself is

" All things must pass". That thought gets me through most difficult episodes in life, especially with kids because they grow out of and into different phases

Good luck

Can you get help? Family? Friends? Paid help? Can you get anyone to mind him for 2-4 hours so you get some sleep and don’t loose your mind? Baby doesn’t mind at that age as long as his needs are safely and reliably met.. get a cleaner… anything just to get you through these first 3 months..

I promise it gets better. For me it was around the time I weaned them.

I had prem twins at 34+0, one was 4lb, the other was 3.10. They had problems with sucking so we were in hospital for 2 weeks.

They both had reflux, one was silent reflux so he just screamed constantly. We had problems with feeding. We had problems with terrible wind, constipation.

I weaned them early, I think they were maybe 5 months. I’d read that actually it’s good for them to be weaned early if prem as they’re lacking some stores, I think it might have been iron. I can’t remember (they’re adults now!)

I promise promise promise, you’re so close to it being much much easier xxxx

Yes it gets better.

DD was born at 34+0, 3 weeks in NICU.

Lots of digestive issues and wind in the first few months, only slept on my chest with me sitting semi upright, couldn’t be put down for more than a minute.

It turned out later she had tongue tie so do get checked for that, especially if BF. don’t assume it’s all due to being prem like I did!

It got a lot better about 11 weeks corrected/17 weeks actual. Much easier to wind her and much less discomfort. Little improvements started from 7 weeks corrected. Sorry I know that probably all sounds very far away right now. But hang in there.

As pp say do whatever you need to for the next month or two. Sleep in shifts so you each get half a night (we didn’t do this and really should have). Do whatever needed to keep him comfortable enough to nap - sling maybe. I gave up on the sling too quickly, should have persevered with hindsight.

Yes it gets better. My DD was born at 24 weeks and the first year had a lot of appointments, but she’s 8 now and doing great.

Those symptoms sound like cows milk protein allergy - has this been ruled out? My DD was on a prescribed hypoallergenic formula and much much better. When I was expressing, if I accidentally slipped up and had any dairy, it was definitely obvious in her nappies. She’s grown out of it now.

good luck

It gets better. My 34 weeker was very poorly indeed and is now a lovely 15 year old. It got easier when we stopped having to wake her every 2 hours to feed her when she was about 10 weeks.

It does get better. Being a premmie mum is really isolating and you are going through so much more than people will realise. Every thing that doesn’t go right is so overwhelmingly difficult. It was 16 years ago for me but I remember it so vividly. Definitely check for a CMPA or lactose intolerance.

We were in NICU it had similar experiende.

It was horrific and i had to argue with Dr's A LOT because they basically rolled their eyeballs so hard when I suggested CMPA.

If you think your baby is uncomfortable I would INSIST on at least trying aptimil pepti for 48/72 hrs to see of there is an improvement

I then had the same fight again when our DS srarred backsliding on aptimil pepti (initially imoroved dramatically then slowly started getting same symptoms again) and needed to move onto nutramigen /alfamino

It WILL get better, you WILL get out of there 💗

We are having / have had the same. My baby was born the first week of March at 34+0 weeks. We have struggled with reflux, colic, struggling to pass wind, never wanting to be put down and sleeping on me for months.
at 12 weeks actual I finally was able to put her down to sleep on her own in my next to me cot. The colic and reflux for us went at 12 weeks too. We’re stroll struggling with the passing wind though, she wakes up regularly in the night pushing and staining trying to pass wind and only a giant fart calms here which sometimes doesn’t come. I’m hoping it goes really soon too, I feel so bad for her because she is sooo tired and you can tell she just wants to be asleep. She’s currently 17 weeks exactly. Crossing my fingers the next month or so her guy develops more