Question about colostrum with a preemie

Winnychan

Just wondering... how do you know when colostrum has become normal milk? I heard somewhere that preemie moms produce colostrum for longer than moms with a full term baby. Is there any truth to this? And if so, how much longer?

I'm kind of hoping it IS true, because my little one sure could use the extra calories!

- Whitney

Mrs. Alice

My milk looked yellowish for the first week or two and then it turned white.  I'm pretty sure that's when it's regular milk.  I have heard that in studies, moms of preemies milk has more calories than the average 20/oz.

vsalt31

Mine was about 4-5 days before it turned into milk.

Bluebird2318

Mine took around a full week to change, and like PP said: colostrum is yellow, milk is white.

urbanflowerpot

CaitlinH88:

Mine took around a full week to change, and like PP said: colostrum is yellow, milk is white.

Yep, about a week here. 

haziedaze

When I brought all my milk back from the NICU and organized it by day, it was pretty clear that the change was actual somewhat gradual. It got a lot more white in the 2nd week, but then slowly changed to more and more white over the first month. It was cool to see, wish I had take a picture!

Colostrum doesn't actually have more calories, I think it's a little less, definitely less fat. It does have tons of other cool things in it. But as others have said preemie moms, in general, have more calorically dense milk. I credit that as being why my little guy gained weight great exclusively breastfeeding.

rels09

I guess I am the odd one out, but my milk came in on the normal timeframe - two full days plus a night after delivery.

pugznploons

took 6 days for mine to turn to milk, she lost a lot of weight in that time