Help with NW for 2 month old preemie please!

[gemmavicki]

Hi!

I am a first time mum and trying to get my LO onto an EASY routine. He was born at 35 weeks weighing 5lb 13oz and is now 8 weeks old. He has reflux but this seems to be fairly well controlled at the moment by a combination of ranitidine and prevacid. As he was premature, I waited until he was 6 weeks old to start an EASY routine as before then I was told by the midwives he just needed to be fed on demand and he couldn't manage A time. He is growing really well though and was 9lb 2oz at his last weigh when he was 6 weeks old so I have tried to put him on a 3 hour EASY.

He responds really well during the day and easily manages 3 hours between feeds but at night he only seems to manage a 3 hour stretch the first time (so from 7 to around 10) after this, he wakes every 2 - 2.5 hours. He feeds for around the same length of time both day and night so not sure why he is waking at shorter intervals during the night. I generally don't even manage a DF as he often is waking just as I go to DF. On occasion, my DH will do the 10pm or midnight feed and then LO takes 150ml EBM and then sleeps for around 3.5-4hrs. This makes me wonder if he is getting enough from his BF at night.

I would really like him to be able to go for 3 hrs at night as well as getting that little bit of extra sleep makes it so much easier to cope during the day! At the moment, if you count the 10pm feed, I am doing 4-5 NF before his 7am wake up feed.

Any advice would be great! Also, slightly off the topic of NW, but as a preemie, should I be looking at his routine from the point of view of his actual age or his adjusted age? i.e. in terms of my expectations for his A time and when he should be able to move from 3 to 4 hour EASY.

[lily_layne]

I have no preemie experience but I think you'd want to look at his adjusted age when considering routines. That said, the beauty of BW is that it really encourages you to look at YOUR child's needs (not the perfect child most routines are based on ) and plan from there.

Since he's only 3 weeks adjusted, I think the frequent NWs is pretty normal and there's likely no quick fix. I don't think it would be an issue of you not producing enough milk at night as that's when production usually peaks. it could be that he's feeding lazily (is he dozing on the breast?) and not taking in enough to satisfy him for longer that 2 hours.

The only tips I can think of that might help are a tight swaddle and white noise - they really helped get my DD sleeping longer stretches at night. When I was desperate for something longer than 2-3 hours, I popped her in the swing on high speed.