Tips for caring for preemie
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
Eat what you need to keep yourself going. Breastfeeding requires energy. Energy comes from food. It is a myth that by eating burger and fries your milk will be lower quality. Your body will take what it needs to get your baby what it needs. Until you can eat better, you do with what keeps life easiest right now. https://laleche.org.uk/breastfeeding-and-a-mothers-diet-myths-and-facts/ If you don't want to use formula, then you figure out a schedule and you stick to it as much as you can which also requires a lot of energy. Formula is only suggested as a back-up because sometimes pumping and breastfeeding is a lot harder (and painful) than it initially seems (and I breastfed all three of my children from birth to 2.5 years). I always recommend breastfeeding, but fed is best and that is what matters when you want to see your newborn growing. You may only be interested in feeding her breastmilk, but make sure she is fed no matter what. |
Anonymous
This is good to know. I will order some of what was suggested but I won’t feel guilty about eating fast food. I would use formula if we needed to. She’s eating 1.5-2oz per feed and I’m making 2-4oz per pump session. I am on a pumping schedule of every 3 hours but it’s still a lot when we need to feed her every two hours. |
Anonymous
|
OP, think of this period as a war/marathon. The goal is for you and baby to be alive at the end of each day, and you get there by any means necessary.
It will get better, but right now you are in the (surprise!) by any means necessary phase of having a newborn. Feeding yourself - by any means necessary - and drinking tons of water is really important. As long as baby is gaining weight, you are in great shape. Keep an eye out for jaundice. When I had preemie twins, I ate one of those Costco tubs of chocolate covered almonds every week. It will get easier next week when your husband is home. |
Anonymous
|
You only eat a snack and dinner? That’s not enough food for anyone, let alone a breastfeeding mom. You should be eating at least 3 meals a day and drinking at least half a gallon of water. What do you eat right now? You may be getting high calories from fast food but that’s not good.
|
Anonymous
My wife did this. We had a preemie who after Nicu wouldn’t breastfeed. I literally did everything because she saw pumping as her only responsibility and was convinced it was all she could or should do. She had to pump once overnight but I’d have to get up 2-3 times a night to care for a crying baby. This was on top of Covid and not having any parental leave myself, while she was on parental leave. I knew something was amiss. It turned out she had postpartum depression. It’s hard in the moment to separate out exhaustion and all the changes from something clinically significant. Ultimately it was that she missed out on the “normal” child birth experience, first few weeks, plus the fact the baby never latched… If you’re feeling really overwhelmed it can’t hurt to be evaluated. There’s nothing wrong with that. Preemies and Nicu and post Nicu are difficult moments and no one who hasn’t been through it understands it. Deep down I probably resent her for this, but I do try to suppress those feelings. But it literally took years off of my life and wore me down. I can buckle down and grind when something just needs to be done. But, all of this is to say, just shifting the burden of everything else onto your husband bc pumping is a pain is not the optimal path. 1. See if something clinically significant is happening, 2. Be reasonable about 1 person can do. |
Anonymous
I know it’s bad but yes. I prioritize sleep over eating. I eat a snack or two and just dinner. I know I need to get better with eating. My snacks are usually a protein bar or two and dinner like burgers or chicken tenders and fries, Chinese, or Mexican food. |
Anonymous
I don’t expect my husband to do it all. It would be really great to have an extra person to share the feedings, bottle/pump washing, holding the baby, etc., but he wouldn’t be doing it all. We communicate really well and we are a team. |
Anonymous
You do whatever is easiest for you. If you belong to a church ask if there is a meal train--where members set up schedule for providing a dinner every day. In my church we were happy to help members of the community who were not members of the church. |
Anonymous
We aren’t religious to church people. We don’t know anyone who is. |
Anonymous
|
Is this your first, OP? I remember being completely baffled at how to eat when we first got home from the hospital with my first….my neighbor dropped off pasta and meatballs, salad and bread and I almost cried, it was so nice, and I think we were just so overwhelmed with the transition. I’ve since made meals unprompted for many different neighbor families with new babies as my way of passing it on. Would any of your neighbors be willing to start a meal train for you?
Did she have a NICU stay? How big is she?I’ve had 2 that were 36 weekers (5-5.5 lbs) and my last was a 34 weeker (4.5 lbs) who was stuck in the NICU for 2 weeks while she learned to eat - so glad they didn’t send us home as she was so sleepy that most of her milk was tube fed those first weeks. I pumped and bottle fed for the first few weeks after she got home as it was faster and my husband could take a turn, and allowed us to take “shifts” By maybe week 3.5 - 4 I was throwing in a nursing session or two during the day and she got the hang of it pretty quickly. By week 5 or 6 she had gained enough weight and was strong enough to move to night nursing too as well which was a life saver. My other two did not have NICU time and no tube feeding but had a hard time waking to eat, both times we supplemented with formula in the beginning as we did not want to mess around and were under strict doctors orders. My advice to get through it - buy multiples of pump parts. Buy and eat greek yogurt (it’s delicious with honey and/or peanut butter and cinnamon and fruit) for breakfast or a snack - it’s filling and healthy. Or oatmeal which is also good for supply. And keep trying with the nursing, if it’s important to you. But don’t be afraid to supplement; it will not ruin your breastfeeding relationship but might save your sanity. Use the slow cooker - it will be your friend. Good luck! |
Anonymous
You had to wake up 2 or 3 times per night? OMG, you poor thing. And it took years off your life and wore you down?? Causing resentment to this day, even! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Amazing all of us mothers are not dead yet, after 2 or 3 kids and night feeding 🙄 I really really really hope this is a troll. Just WOW. |
Anonymous
|
I'm really struggling to believe you are sincere, for a variety of reasons.
But the main was is you have a reason you can't do anything suggested. You can ddordash healthier options the same way you can the junk. You don't have to be religious to organize a meal train or have someone do it for you? Do you have friends? Family etc? Your pediatrician may have some advice or resources to help you make feedings more productive. |
Anonymous
Yes, she’s our first. I think we just didn’t have time to prepare and these past couple of days at home have been a lot. Food hasn’t been a priority but we will do some grocery delivery to make sure I eat. She wasn’t in the NICU solely but she was in the hospital and I stayed with her for 6 days. She was born at 35 weeks and 5 days at 5lbs 6.5oz. She dropped down to 4lbs 11oz by the 3rd day so they kept us. She was back up to 5lbs 1oz when we came home. I’m doing bottle feeding with the Dr. Brown’s 2oz ( preemie) bottles but I do put her on the breast so she can try to get the hang of it. We are waking her for every feed still and she isn’t awake pretty much at all except for 5-10 minutes every couple of hours. We are under strict feeding schedules as well to make sure she gains well. I’m a little picky. I don’t like oatmeal, honey, or cinnamon. I do eat a healthy diet so I will stock up on my usual without guilt for eating takeout during this time. I don’t plan to cook so we will be using a lot of prepared meals for the next several weeks. |
Anonymous
I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I’m replying to the suggestions and elaborating on my circumstances. DoorDash doesn’t always deliver if you’re too far away from the restaurant. That’s been our situation many times. That wasn’t even my point. I specifically said I’m not religious or belong to a church because pp said about the church and meal trains. We have family but many don’t cook and aren’t that thoughtful. Our friends have dropped off some things but no food. We aren’t willing to put our friends out to ask them to make us food. Something about that seems very distasteful and entitled. |
Anonymous
|
With my second baby, the new bottle washers exist now and those have been saving so much time for me in terms of not needing to wash the bottles/pump stuff and throwing it in the machine instead.
Multiples of pump parts and bottles to minimize the number of times you need to wash per day. You have to eat, OP! We have this instantpot where we’ll make a huge batch of chicken soup (literally just throw in a whole chicken, an onion that we quartered, some unchopped carrots, unchopped celery, salt) and a huge batch of rice separately. Takes about <5 mins to put on. The soup I just keep on the “Keep Warm” setting. I have it 3x a day with a large scoop of rice, which I also kept on the keep warm setting in my rice cooker. This was huge for my milk supply. Other foods to keep around that are less than 5 mins to make: lots of fruit especially bananas, tortillas (I would just add pre shredded cheese, rotisserie chicken, spinach and hot sauce and roll it up and eat it), yogurt, PBJ. |