Premie Questions

AZAmy77

Just a few questions for my son Andrew, born at 35 weeks gestation about 2 weeks ago.

Bottles - we have Dr Brown bottles but the cap seems too big for him, does anyone recommend a different brand

How much should he be eating at this point?  Is there a reference for premie babies?

And last, I wondered how soon others put their premie babies in activity chairs, like bouncer/swings - would that be too much for him?

brachysira

We got a preemie Dr. Brown's nipple at Babies R Us, but she never took to it.  It was too slippery.  She learned on the NICU bottles which were the disposable kind.  You can get them on Amazon.  Not sure if it's bad, we just wash them--we don't bottle feed very often.  

I am pretty sure we fed 1.5-2 oz every 2 hours, and were supposed to really push it--but she was home at 34 weeks.  You should try to get explicit instructions on feeding.  We had to supplement breastmilk with extra calories.

Ours didn't take to the bouncer at first--she would kind of slump to the side.  She started loving her bouncer at about 2 weeks adjusted.  We had success with propping in the boppy and setting her in the rock n play before the bouncer.  We didn't have a swing, but you could try it.  We had constant hiccups--I don't know if she was always overstimulated or just gassy...

  

AZAmy77

Thanks all.

 Its not really the nipples - its the cap part the nipples go into that seem to rub his chin some.  We also were using the disposable hospital ones.

Dr did give some direction, but I should have asked more questions.  Right now he seems to be eating more often so I am going to track just what he is eating in a day instead of each feeding. 

Thanks for info on the activity stuff, I don't want to overstimulate him.  Really eating, sleeping and doing some skin to skin time with us wears him out enough probably. Just wondered when to introduce the others, but guessing I should just guage it on his reaction/energy levels. 

 We've had quite a bit of hiccups too, but I think its a gassy problem

pathfindermon

We tired every bottle out there and I found that tommee tippee worked the best for my DS.

ashbee0223

I used the hospital bottles for the first two weeks and used the 2oz Dr. Browns bottles with stage 1 nipples for expressed breast milk. He generally ate up to 2oz every 2 hours the first month. You can get the preemie dr browns nipples at babies r us.