Bottle Feeding with Preemie

My 30 weeker who has been in the nicu almost 5 weeks now is just a feeder and grower in the NICU now, and they say he will more than likley be home sometime next week..yay! All he has to do is grow and eat all his feedings by mouth. It just seems to me like it will take ALOT longer for him to learn to eat everything by mouth by next week. He is getting 3 bottles a day now, and he will finish a whole one, and then the other two he will finish half or a little more. I know this all takes time, but he has the breathing sucking swallowing thing down pat, he stats 99-100 when he is eating (he is NOT on any o2 or anything) So I was just wondering what other moms experinence are with this. About how long did it take before the nurses were trying your baby every feeding with the bottle? and how long did it take for them to get it down pat...thanks!

Oh yea...a little VENT right here, this morning when I got to the NICU @ 8:15, Griffyn was eating on the pump.......which I thought was weird because he eats @ 12,3,6 and 9...............how bout the night nurse FORGOT to turn his pump on after she put his milk in there...so my little guy missed his 6am feeding!!  

Quoting sawyersmom05:“ My 30 weeker who has been in the nicu almost 5 weeks now is just a feeder and grower in the NICU now, ... [snip!] ... bout the night nurse FORGOT to turn his pump on after she put his milk in there...so my little guy missed his 6am feeding!!  ”

oh, that would totally piss me off.

Congrats, and I hope he gets to come home soon!

Quoting sawyersmom05:“ My 30 weeker who has been in the nicu almost 5 weeks now is just a feeder and grower in the NICU now, ... [snip!] ... bout the night nurse FORGOT to turn his pump on after she put his milk in there...so my little guy missed his 6am feeding!!  ”

Ohhh sounds like he is progressing wonderfully! I would be SO PISSED if they forgot to feed my baby, speak to a superviser! Now his feedings are all screwy for the rest of the day right?

Quoting Preggerific:“ Ohhh sounds like he is progressing wonderfully! I would be SO PISSED if they forgot to feed my baby, speak to a superviser! Now his feedings are all screwy for the rest of the day right?”

They just say he MISSED a feeding so, he doesn't get an EXTRA feeding ....poor thang  

I know its upsetting but he probably didn't even realize he missed it. The same thing happened with my girls when they were gavage feeding and the nurse didn't realize it wasn't flowing but my girls never even woke up hungry. Sadly it happens.

As far as advancing on the feedings, you will be amazed at how fast they can advance. Every baby is different but my girls advanced pretty quickly with the bottle. Not so fast with breastfeeding which I ended up giving up on but that was more of a supply problem. Anyway, the way our NICU did it was if they ate 80% of what they were supposed to in a day from how ever many bottles they were at then they advanced. So for example, they were getting 2 bottles a day, 55 mL each bottle. Once they ate 80% from those 2 bottles, then the next day they would get 3 bottles and so forth. After both girls got up to 5 bottles, they were just chugging so the protocal was tossed out and they were given all 8 bottles. It pooped them out a little at first but they were out of there about 2 days after taking all of their feeds. At that point they were also changed to where they could either take 55 mL every 3 hours or 75 mL every 4 hours. They just had a minimum they had to take every 12 hours.

MommaofTwins, that's how it worked in my NICU too. It took Paige 3 solid weeks to learn how to bottle feed, in the beginning it was soooo hard for her to get the suck-swallow-breathe right. Then during that 3rd week, it was like a switch went off in her brain and she quickly progressed to every feeding by bottle! I was so happy the day they took her NG tube out.   Their rulefor discharge was she had to take all her feedings by bottle (with a minimum intake like you explained) for 48 hours. It was funny because two days after discharge the doctor calls to make sure Paige is still taking her bottles at home, and at that point I couldn't get the bottle in her mouth fast enough, little demanding piggy LOL.

Oh, about the skipped feeds... Paige had to skip a feeding every time the eye doctor would do an exam (every other week). I guess the drops they put in their eyes somehow led to upset tummies. That's how Paige finished her first bottle... it had been 8 hours since she last ate and she was STARVING LOL.