I’m all in for EI (and pretty much every other resource NICU offers) if we can get it, and it’s a great extra boost to hear you recommend it so enthusiastically! Some of the therapists (speech, physical, etc.) have come by to chat or evaluate at bedside and seem fantastic.
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For my first, she was breast + formula at the beginning because she had a non-nutritive suck. I remember crying every time we had to give her formula. I felt like a horrible person that I couldn’t pump enough, the pressure to breastfeed is so high around here. I don’t even remember when we were able to get her breast only, but she stayed that way (plus pumped at daycare) until 12 months, when she started doing regular milk at school. We nursed at home until like 15 months. One day she just said “no” and then never nursed again.
For my second, he was nursing + formula from the beginning, because I realized all the stress about formula with the first one was too much. Then when I went back to work, I pumped for awhile but just didn’t want to do it anymore. I decided at 6 months, I was just done. He went bottle only, and was just fine. I nursed a little bit here and there for a few days, but don’t remember the transition being a problem.
Fed is best. Feed your baby in the way that works for you.
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That’s a bummer of a day! I hope today is better! I would have thought the car seat test would be okay for reflux since car seats are a bit elevated? If you’re doing the car seat test you must be getting close to going home?!
NICU expert help was so wonderful that I have no idea how anyone else learns to parent. I’m so thankful for everyone there (especially nurses, LCs and everyone doing therapy stuff)
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Yeah, I would have thought car seat would be fine for reflux! Oddly, I had a reflux issue myself yesterday morning – sat in bed checking my phone when I first woke up, but with my neck crunched forward. It must have affected my swallowing or something, and maybe my guts are still rearranging themselves inside. I ended up having a bizarre combo of burping/vomiting to clear it up. They do the car seat test bc babies can flop their heads too far forward in the car seat and cut off their breathing – he had no breathing problems but maybe the same thing stomach/throat thing happened to him?
Today is much better. The magic overnight reset button must have worked. And keeping all your various stories in mind helps too, so thank you forum friends.
If everything keeps going smoothly we go home Sunday! 2 days to go!!
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Yeah, NICU help & education has been incredible. I feel like his desat event on Tuesday could have been a fluke (his sensors were also occasionally dropping out entirely), but do appreciate them following protocol and being overcautious if anything.
On the flip side, 2 separate friends had babies this past weekend and had to go back to the hospital at the initial checkup bc their babies were only pretending to nurse and losing too much weight!
Maybe nobody should be released from hospital until they’re feeding well & regaining weight? Or daily nurse visits at home for the first week?
I came across some articles about postpartum luxury centers in Taiwan and China. Initially it seemed ridiculous, but now I get where they’re coming from.
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We were also initially released from the hospital and ended up having to go back (he was nursing, it was something else, although formula might have helped too).
But I’d say 100% yes to frequent home visits and 100% please don’t make people stay in the hospital a long time if they don’t need to! Being at home was really great and if we have another I might try to do it at home. Homebirth midwives (at least here) do a lot more visits to keep that close eye on baby’s weight as well as to check in on the birthing parent. Obviously hospitals are so great if we need them, but I wish we had more home nurse visits for people.
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My first was breast, expressed, and formula fed while we were in hospital. My body was slow establishing a milk supply, I had a long labour, emergency caesarean, postpartum haemorrhage and low oxygen to recover from and making milk wasn’t given a priority. Once I was on the mend and my supply came in we were able to drop the formula and eventually dropped most of the expressing too. We had weight gain issues too, I’m happy to elaborate on my experiences with that if it’s of interest to anyone. She weened completely right around her second birthday but from about one year she was fine without feeds if she was in the care of other people. I would have preferred earlier, especially as we were trying to conceive and feeding while pregnant was painful, but I found continuing to breastfeed preferable for me vs forcing her to ween. Moving her into her own room seemed to be the final step in her losing interest altogether.
My most recent breastfeeding experience has been very different. No early supply issues was wonderful but I have a vigorous feeder and experienced awful nipple trauma in the first couple of weeks. I haven’t used the electric pump at all yet (8 weeks) but have expressed a few feeds using a silicone suction bottle. He has a preference for one side over the other and if he is fussy flat out refuses the side with the stronger letdown, so I express when that happens to avoid blocked ducts. I’m not sure what my plan is for weening this time. We are pretty sure this is our last but I’m not sure if that will make me willing to feed longer or more keen to ween earlier.
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We didn’t have to be readmitted, but if I’d waited until her scheduled checkup on day five, we might have been. Instead, I brought her in on day three for no wet or poopy diapers and looking jaundiced, and left with instructions for supplementing after each nursing session.
I wish I’d had another day, honestly. Though she’d lost only 6% of her birthweight with mild bilirubin levels at discharge, she was up to 13% lost the next day with moderate bilirubin levels. Really, she wasn’t even 48 hours old when we went home in the evening of day two, but since she was born at 10:35pm, our first of two insurance-covered nights started when she was less than two hours old. I think if we’d had another day and she’d been weighed in the morning, we would have started formula then, which was only a few hours before she did end up getting formula, but I would have been spared the awful feeling that I let her unknowingly starve.
I still have some sensitive feelings about her weight gain and daily intake because of that brief, ultimately mild, quickly caught and rectified issue.
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This could have been me as well. Baby E was born at 11:49pm, so her first “day” in the hospital was 11 minutes. Luckily our insurance company sends a nurse for a home visit the day after you are discharged and then each day after that if there are any weight gain issues. My milk didn’t come in until our 3rd day at home so after the second nurse visit we were told we had to supplement with formula. A few hours after she left I woke up from a nap and the milk was there, but we still tried* supplementing until the nurse came again the next day. Thankfully the next day she had gone up a little in weight and the bilirubin levels had finally gone down enough that we got to stay home.
I say “tried” supplementing because the nurse gave us a little syringe to use for the formula and told us to supplement with just one ounce per feeding, but I don’t think the baby actually kept any of the formula down. She seemed to spit it all back up.
Ha! Writing up my last post made me remember something funny about when Baby E was born. Others might find it amusing as well, and it might help some others with awareness of jaundice 
I had read about jaundice and how common it is with newborns and I knew they would be checking her bilirubin levels and that she might have to be put under a light if she was too jaundiced. I also knew that the more she pooped the quicker the jaundice would go away so I was hoping for a baby that pooped well right away. However, I thought she would look really yellow if she had jaundice.
Baby E was born and she came out with a full, thick head of dark black hair and dark brown skin. She 100% looked like she wasn’t caucasian. Mr E and I are both very caucasian, with pale skin and light brown hair on my end and medium brown on his end. This baby did not look like she could have possible been made by us. We joked about how dark she was among ourselves and around 12 hours after she was born we actually asked a nurse about how it was possible for us to make that baby. She laughed and told us that her skin was dark because of the jaundice and that once the jaundice went away her skin would get a lot paler. 
Sure enough, she is now a very pale caucasian baby and all of her black hair fell out. She was bald FOREVER and now she has an impressive mullet of very light strawberry bond hair! (The hair has come in thick and long in the back, but is still very sparse in the front)
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Does anyone have a nursing pillow they actually like? I have a boppy but it feels like I still have to use my hands to hold up his head and it’s killing my wrists. So far our random decorative couch pillows and the memory foam bed pillow are the least bad options.
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MyBreastFriend. I used my boppy under it to support it too. I had a used one first and hated it- the foam was too broken down. Brand new is a must on those sadly to get the right shape. YMMV though my friend hated it.
They do get better at it. I put a pillow under the boppy on the side her head was on for more support, but eventually once she got going I could use both hands for whatever while she ate. And we stopped entirely just after three months, so it didn’t take long.
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This is weird, but I was given two boppies. One was very stuffed and worked amazingly for my newborn. The other was a lot flatter and just…didn’t have enough oomph to keep her head up and I always had to prop it underneath with another pillow. I’m not sure why except maybe one was an older model or had been squished in transit or something. I still used both but the flat one was a pita. Is it possible that you got a flat?
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I just realised that I have a few old pillows we were going to throw out, but since babies get milk everywhere I might as well just wash thoroughly and then turn them into a home made boppy.
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Interesting… very possible! This was a Buy Nothing find.
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Yes! We were given the option to leave a day early or stay extra (I had 3 days for a csection) and we chose to stay. My sleep was crap in the hospital but it was so nice to have someone helping us with getting my meds/foods, someone to check on me and the baby every few hours. By the time we left, she had already started gaining weight and we all were feeling a little more confident.
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I realized I wanted a much smaller, firmer pillow, like a small memory foam pillow. Then I realized we already have one for camping, now that I’ve left my bare bones camping days behind. It’s rectangle a tad larger than a magazine and about 4" thick. The baby doesn’t slide around and it’s working much better.
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Oo, I’m tempted to hack apart our old (hard) memory foam pillow to see if it works. The only problem is that my spouse started using it as his primary pillow like a week ago after not using it for 2 years!
Unrelated, I ordered several pairs of Blanqi leggings because I realized I had built up a nice big YNAB budget for ‘post-partum supplies’. I feel like a human again! They are nice and tight/stretchy/supportive over my c-section scar/tummy pooch without feeling like maternity leggings.
I’m also living in nursing tanks. I wish that the kindred braverly tanks had an option that wasn’t v-neck because I like them the best but they definitely call attention to my huge boobs in a way that I don’t love…
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It’s funny how I had no idea what I would want to wear postpartum and totally ignored clip-down nursing tanks. Now that I’m a few weeks into nursing I am loving this tank from Anook and just ordered a second. The fabric is really comfy, it has a built-in bra with padding to catch light leaking, and I like how it has a bit of support/shape for my now-giant boobs (but is not shapewear). Pricey but I can wear it for 2-3 days before feeling gross.
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