Feeding Habits for Preemies

Giving birth to a pre-term baby is a terrifying experience for most mothers. Preemies are small and frail-looking, and generally require intensive care until they reach the gestational age at which they should have been born. In addition to needing help with breathing and maintaining their body temperatures, preemies have special nutritional and feeding needs while they're in the hospital and after they come home.

Instructions

1

Begin pumping breast milk as soon as you're able, even if you don't plan to breastfeed your baby when you leave the hospital. Breast milk is the most digestible food for babies, and the milk and colostrum contain the nutrients and antibodies they need most. Pumping your milk is the best way to develop and maintain your supply. Preemies born before 31 weeks of gestation are fed by feeding tube, so your stored milk can be given to the baby, often with other vitamins and nutritional supplements.

2

Pump your milk on a regular schedule, as recommended by the staff at the hospital. This is usually every three to four hours, for 15 minutes at a time. The hospital will store the milk for you.

3

Try breastfeeding or bottle feeding your baby when her sucking and swallowing reflexes have developed, usually between 32 to 34 weeks. A doctor or nurse will help you with this in the beginning because babies have to learn how to latch on and suck a nipple, and some preemies can take awhile to learn. At first, the baby will be fed with the breast or bottle along with a feeding tube, and then slowly weaned off the tube.

4

Plan to feed your baby every three to four hours, or more often if he wants it. Most babies eat eight times in every 24-hour period. Preemies don't scream like full-term babies when they're hungry, so you'll have to learn your baby's signs. Often, being awake or restless is the only sign of hunger a preemie gives. If your baby hasn't eaten for four hours, you might have to wake him up to feed him.

5

Stimulate your baby's desire to suck by undressing her part way, and holding her against your bare skin to feed her. Making her want this comfort from you will make her want to stay awake and eat. If the baby drinks all the milk from both breasts, supplement the feed with formula or expressed breast milk in a bottle.

6

Express more milk after each feeding. In the beginning, preemies often fall asleep before they have eaten their fill, and you can use the stored milk later if you need to supplement a feed. If your baby falls asleep while feeding, you can try to wake her by stroking her cheek with her finger or stroking her lips with your nipple, but this doesn't always work.

7

Be persistent in teaching your preemie to breastfeed, especially if she has only been given bottles. Breastfeeding is more work for a baby and it can sometimes take weeks for her to learn how to do it properly. Give her bottles until she learns how to nurse from your nipple, but don't get discouraged and give up. Continue expressing your breast milk even if your baby never takes to the nipple because you can still give her your milk from a bottle.

8

Feed your baby about 12 to 15 oz. of milk or formula every three to four hours when she's big enough to take home. It's not really possible to measure the amount of food a breastfed baby is getting, so you should feed her on demand every time she acts hungry, which might mean more frequent feedings. If your baby takes more than 15 oz. in a feed, offer her more.

9

Keep careful track of your baby's weight after you take him home because this is the only way of knowing if he's eating enough. A healthy baby should gain about 5 oz. per week.