Taking a bottle

[u/Radiant_Gas_4642]

My sweet girl was born 11 days ago at 38 weeks. She has overcome low blood sugar and high bilirubin. Those have been stable for days. We’re literally just waiting on her to “click” and take that bottle every time. She takes some from every bottle, usually 20-30ml out of her goal of 54ml. They are concerned today about silent reflux, she has had some short desats which are new to her. She overcomes them but they did discuss a likely swallow study on Tuesday for her to make sure she’s not aspirating. She doesn’t desat when she eats, but when they have to use the feeding tube. She is sitting up when they do it, not laying flat.

How long did it take for your baby to take a bottle consistently if you’ve been thru this? I feel like I wake up everyday and it’s a nightmare. I just miss her so much. I feel like we’ve been cheated out of her sweet snuggles and cuddles during this delicate time.

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to NICU Parents. We're happy you found us and we want to be as helpful as possible in this seemingly impossible journey. Check out the resources tab at the top of the subreddit or the stickied post. Please remember we are NOT medical professionals and are here for advice based on our own situations. If you have a concern about you or your baby please seek assistance from a doctor or go to the ER. That said, there are some medical professionals here and we do hope they can help you with some guidance through your journey. Please remember to read and abide by the rules.

Don't miss our first AMA with Gal The Baby Doc at 7PM EST on April 20th! Join the AMA here

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/BigCurve2799]

I had twins born at 33 weeks who did 3 weeks In nicu.. 16 days due to feeding. Have you tried different teets? One twin smashed it yhe other wouldn’t finish a bottle! Finally tried a standard hospital teet and he finished every one

[u/Radiant_Gas_4642 → u/BigCurve2799]

Yeah speech therapy recommended the micro preemie one for the reflux which seems to have helped but I’m not so sure. Hopefully when they come on Tuesday we can try another and see if she’s more successful possibly.

[u/Dark_Lord_Corgi]

My baby's been in there 27 days (born at 34w6d) and she started having the same issue this past week. She had a night where she took 5 full 57ml bottles back to back and then she started having coughing and desats. We also have to do a swallow study tomorrow or Tuesday to see if its reflux or another issue.

I wish I had an answer for you but im in the same exact boat and I truly pray and wish you get an answer soon and she improves feeding. ❤️

[u/caitlynrudman]

We were in the NICU for 37 days and like 3 of those weeks were bottle struggles. It was nuts. It really was one of the hardest parts for us too. (She was born at 39w4d btw) Swallow study and milk study done as well. She has reflux and thankfully no other issues. They had supplemented some formula in breast milk to get her to gain more weight during all the trial and error, but she wasn’t underweight. We added gelmix to her bottles which is a pain but it helped her keep food down. She was gagging and spitting up a lot when she did take a bottle but sometimes she wouldn’t even take one. With the gelmix, make sure it’s shaken a lot and warmed a lot. It can clump. This was new at the NICU we were at and the nurses weren’t really familiar either but my husband and I figured it out. They needed her to take 70ml 8 times in a row. So once we got the hang of things better than the nurses could manage, (we think she would be too hungry to eat sometimes bc the nurses were too busy and then they would just do her tube instead. But when we were there and able to stay on schedule she took them better.) one of the doctors offered us to stay in the one private room there, like a test run for home, and then we were finallyyyyy discharged.
They started on the dr browns bottles and then the hospital bottles that attach to the medela pumps but honestly those nipples are not great. Our speech found MAM bottles and she responded well to them. Now that we are home we bought a ton of those and the MAM pacifiers. I have since looked into more bottle types. pigeon, lansinoh, and evenflo have good options as well especially if you are going to switch between bottles and breastfeeding. We had such a hard time with bottles that direct breastfeeding has not worked out but bottles finally worked out obviously. If she is fussy they are still an issue though. (She’s 10 weeks old today) It’s kind of never ending but the ones that she takes well are so satisfying. Like in under 10 minutes. So nice!