S/O adding feedings

paradebegone

I am in a very similar situation, except they want to decrease feedings from every 3 hours to every 4 hours.

DD was born on May 24th at 33 weeks 5 days. She spent 2 days in the NICU and is now in a step down nursery. She's hasn't needed help breathing in several days. They took out the glucose IV drip a couple of days ago. And she's been taken out of her incubator as she is able to hold her own temperature.

Last up hopefully is the feeding. So, they'll let me try to BF a few minutes, then give a bottle of breast milk, then supplement with formula with a goal of 33ml. They'll slowly increase to 45ml with the increased time between feedings. Whatever she can't get down by bottle, she'll have thru her feeding tube.

So, this has made us really frustrated because the unit has gotten much busier in the last day or two and we feel that DD could take a bottle and or latch on if given the time. She just doesn't do it on their schedule. But if we got her home, she wouldn't need a schedule! We could feed all day long! With any slight indication of wanting something! I'd stare at her all day long. Not be running around after one alarm going off or another.

Then I was thinking, would it make sense to just focus on bottle feeding just to get her home as soon as possible? Maybe the BF tires her out too much to finish the bottle. Or maybe she's getting more of my BM than we think!?

Yes, it's been a week and we're already frustrated and desperate. I think my being discharged from the hospital has not helped.

And when the OP said that the nurses look at her like she's crazy when she asks about it, we quite literally sometimes get just blank stares since we're in Germany and don't speak a lick of German. That's a whole other vent.

mcarter127

The reason that there's a time limit on feedings has nothing to do with the nurses being busy or trying to stay on schedule... They have the limit in place because they don't want babies to expend more calories than they're taking in cause that would defeat the whole eating thing. NICUs use a very specific protocol that takes so many factors into consideration. Your baby is not even 35 wks yet, so I wouldn't expect her to be doing all her feedings with no issues or getting ready to come home yet. 

The feeding portion is always really hard on the parents because it seems to take forever. Remind yourself that it's only been a week & even babies born at 37 weeks sometimes take some time to catch on to the whole eating thing. My DS1 was born at 32 weeks & it helped me to think about his gestational age when I'd get frustrated & then I'd see that he really was doing great! Good luck, the feeding part tends to just "click" & then they take off from there! 

mamathompson7

I know how you feel! (I am the original poster, lol!)

I am trying to let it go, and know that this my Charlotte is not their first baby. They know what they're doing.

On a side note about the breast feeding.... What I have decided to do is only try breast feeding when I know they are doing a tube feeding or after she finished a bottle. That way she gets to practice, but I am in no way hindering her finishing a bottle.

Also, whenever we eat, they kind of 'empty her stomach' to see what is in there from last time. Well, on Memorial Day, I had the 'best' nurse, and after Charlotte breastfed for 3 min and 30 seconds (I timed it) before a tube feeding, the nurse checked her stomach out of curiosity and little lady had 10 mL in there! Way more than we ever could have imagined that she had. That made us realize that she is getting so much more food than we thought when she nursed even for a tiny amount of time. 

We are going on 16 days tomorrow, and I was sure she'd only be there for a a week to tend days. I have no idea why I got that in my head, but I guess that came and went and I am just sad that I am still leaving my 1 year old at home while I sit with my other baby in the NICU. I am so ready. 

 

paradebegone

I spoke with the Dr and besides the feeding, she explained that DD has had some drops in heart rate, which are perfectly normal for her age and that they'd like to at least see no dips for 1 week.

I knew that this was the answer we'd get. I know in my head that she needs more work. But it's hard when DH, who is usually the strong one, starts to waiver.

Also, I know that our expectations were set the first night I was admitted and the delivery room doc said if she was a certain weight, she could come home with us. And in the days of strict bed rest that followed, every dr reassured me that DD was great and no need to worry. I suppose it may have been a language issue, or I was hearing what I wanted to hear or they were minimizing to keep me calm. Whatever the reason, I guess this is just one of those days.

Brummy14

Hang in there. The learning to eat part is HARD. And slow. Both of my girls took their first full bottle a full 6 weeks before we were discharged. 6 WEEKS! It drove me batty. They all get there -- in due time. I know it's really tough to be patient -- but these little guys need the time - especially if they're still having any brady or apnea episodes -- they need the time to grow out of those.

jbranden12

When you bf, do they adjust the amount she gets after that? Our NICU had a chart, like if she bf 0-7 minutes, she got her whole feed by bottle or tube. If she did 8-14, she got half, and if she did 15 they considered that a full feed. We also had a 39 minute limit so she didn't get so tired out that she wouldn't wake uo for the next feed. 

Many of your thoughts sound just like mine. I really wanted to bf but considered sticking with the bottle just to get home. Except we were on a 3 hour schedule and I wanted to move to a 4 hour schedule because each feed, DD was still pooping from the prior one and just not hungry, therefore she didn't finish her bottles. Her neo didn't want us to move to 4 hours because she was still so little and her blood sugars would have trouble regulating. Instead, I continued to bf as much as I could and hoped she would make it to 15 minutes. Sometimes she ate more vigorously, somettimes more lazily. But as long as she made it to 15 minutes, it counted! I'll also add that they were okay with this as long as she continued to gain weight, which she did.