Reply to Tips for caring for preemie

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "Tips for caring for preemie "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I had 35wk twins and pumped. It was tough.

[b]My advice is to put DH in charge of as much as you can (washing pump parts, errands etc). [/b]

For food, maybe order some easy things from Costco or supermarket instead? Rotisserie chicken, bagged salad etc. ask DH to cut up a ton of fruit for you (I was obsessed with fruit at that stage- berries, melon etc). I also loved cut veggies with spinach artichoke dip and that sort of thing. Some of the Costco premade stuff is not bad (chicken pot pie or chicken soup, taco platters, take and bake pasta dishes etc). Definitely better than fast food IMO. Also lots of good stuff in the refrigerator section. Maybe some cold sandwich stuff if you like- easy to safely eat with one hand while holding a baby. Also muffins, quick breads or bagels with cream cheese etc. [/quote]

My wife did this.  We had a preemie who after Nicu wouldn’t breastfeed.  I literally did everything because [b]she saw pumping as her only responsibility and was convinced it was all she could or should do.  [/b]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.[/quote]

Presumably she was also the one who delivered an infant and recovered from that delivery? Or did you do that as part of your “literally everything”?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics