You and your preterm baby are doing better than you think!
Have you been blind sighted recently with severe pre-eclampsia? Delivered your baby about 34 weeks? Home from the NICU and wonder what happened? Sound familiar?
First, realize that you are doing better than you think if you are making milk and somehow getting it into your baby and your baby is gaining weight.
Second, bond with your baby by doing some skin to skin before each feeding. She will improve with nursing around the time of her original due date:)
Third, rest and maintain your milk supply with frequent nursing even if it isn't completely effective yet, and then add pumping to empty both sides. Bottle feeding successfully to exit the NICU is a common path.
Fourth, finding other moms and babies who have gone through a similar roller coaster of emotions is so helpful! Attend all the free hospital support groups you can!
Once you are all settled in at home, you may want to add some breastfeeding back in. Here are some tips to succeed with that goal: Arrange to have an experienced (Masters prepared, maternity nurse & educator, IBCLC.. oh that's me:) to your home to conduct a weighted feeding. Today I visited with a lovely family whose baby was in the same situation..mostly bottles and a bit hesitant to try nursing more than once per day. We did the weighted feed in ounces and happy to discover that he was nursing the exact amount he was taking in the bottles! This was a confidence booster for sure and mom then planned to soon replace a couple more bottles with nursing. How did that mom succeed in this goal? Weeks ago while still in the hospital, mom pumped often with the Symphony breast pump that each NICU provides. She also practiced and worked on nursing with the lactation consultants there. She stayed hydrated, pumped often and worked on getting an effective latch. She learned how to tell if her baby was taking nutritive draws or just sleeping at the breast. She used breast compression and laid back nursing..and yes, she was doing better than she thought she would!!
