If your preemie grunts while sleeping...

abbzy85

If/when your baby made those loud grunting noises while he was sleeping, did you leave him to sleep? Or did you pick him up and try to soothe him? My baby constantly makes those noises and while I know he is actually okay, he sounds like he's in pain. It's hard for me to sleep while he is grunting so I end up picking him and trying to soothe him. So just curious what you do.

albertabride06

We just left him. He wasn't in pain or anything he was just making noise. He outgrew the grunting around 2 - 3 months I think, one day I just noticed he hadn't done it in a long time.

New Wife

MINE TENDS to be "doing" business when he is grunting at night

DutchLuna

In the CPR class we took at the NICU, the teacher mentioned that we'd all be surprised by the noises (including the grunting) that our preemies all made when we got them home.  She said that they probably made the noises in the NICU, but with all of the beeping, etc. going on we may not notice it until we get home.  Our baby is still in the NICU, and I've been hearing a lot of grunting since the CRP teacher mentioned it -- though like she said, he was probably doing it all along and I'm just hearing it because she mentioned it.   Our baby is perfectly fine when he makes those noises (though sometimes he is also doing his business), so I guess I would suggest that your baby might have been making these noises all along too, but now that he's home, you notice it -- in which case it's probably okay to leave him.

Vine07

My LO grunts all the time when she is sleeping. I've learned to just leave her be. A lot of the time it keeps me up which is frustrating. I'm always worried and looking over at here but she's always sleeping when she's making her grunting noises and boy are they loud! I hope she outgrows it soon!

ahava2005

Its normal.  Most babies are very loud when they sleep.

Shayna0182

As long as the grunting wasn't crying, and if he was asleep, I just let him be.  We had him in our room until he was about 3 months old, and between him and dh, I was lucky to get any sleep - our room was loud!

jcsntms06

I usually left DD sleeping. She's now 3 months old and she doesn't grunt as much. She does make noises though, but I don't think she's really in pain anymore.

NotJustAnAuntie

Preemies are grunty; it's a fact of life! LOL

One thing though; I'd catch it on video while you can! One day, you're going to realize that it stopped a while before, and you'll miss it! I never remembered to capture it, and I really wish I had!

mommamorris

babies actually have 2 sleep cycles.. one is a more restful.. "pick you up, put you down, and you flop around sleep", and one is a "moving, grunting, eye twitching, possibly even crying/cooing a little" sleep.

both are very important for their development. i just let her ride it out. (and eventually her grunting is next to nothing. for a while dh called her "lady gruntington" because she was ALWAYS grunting!

when she was sleeping in our room still, just a month or so ago, every little sound she made would wake me up... moving her to her own room (with a monitor) was a great big step toward some solid momma sleep!  

Andrewsgal

Aw the baby grunts. BOTH my kids did this DD was a preemie and DS was not (36 week 5 days). They were both huge grunters and loud sleeper, I just let them be.

togo

We just let them be when they do it while sleeping. When it's really bad we put a warm compress on their bellies and that seems to help.