My 32 weeker seems constantly hungry...please help!

shanrob

My DD is now 8 weeks and change, so she's really just a few days adjusted age.  She is about 5.5 lbs and I have been giving her around 60cc (2 oz) every 3 hours per NICU schedule.  When we are finished with her bottle, she is still rooting like crazy for food most times.  Especially at night, about 1/2 hour to an hour after a feed, she is crying and clearly hungry.  I have heard of "cluster feeding" and I am pretty sure this is what is going on.  My question is, since she is bottle fed (enfamil AR), do I give her another full feed an hour later since she is so hungry?  I have tried giving her just a little bit, but she remains unsatisfied.  Any thoughts?  Thanks! I plan on calling her ped on monday, but I just wanted to see if you gals had any experience with this Jaws-like phenomenon.  If she were a shark, she'd be the biggest in the ocean, no doubt

tierelieber

She is most likely going through a growth spurt! I would feed her if she's giving you those cues!

lona.hunn@gmail.com

DS did this also. He drank only 3 oz every 2 hours for the longest time. We are finally up to 5 oz at time now. I would certainly try bumping her feedings up to 3 oz and see if she does better.

jehprb

Say goodbye to any resemblance of a schedule - if she's hungry, feed her :-)  My son was also a 32wkr and he was great at cluster feeding (sometimes as often as every half hour!) during growth spurts.  The only thing that sucked about it was that he was exclusively formula fed so it was a pain to have to make it all the time...especially if he only had a teeny bit and we had to dump the rest (and EnfaCare isn't cheap)!

meldoo2002

I'd try giving her a little more at her regular feeding time and see if she takes that.  If not I would still definitely feed her when she gives you hunger cues.  Eating is such a priority when you have a preemie.

mek10976

tierelieber:

She is most likely going through a growth spurt! I would feed her if she's giving you those cues!

This is what I was thinking too.  We always fed DS until he was satisfied.  When he had a growth spurt, he was taking a full bottle every 2 hours instead of every 4.