Hellobee Boards

I did! My son was born at 34w4d and also had to transition from bottle back to breast. He was very lazy at first and I definitely gave him bottles at every feed in the beginning. I believe my doctor had me nurse him for the first 5-10 minutes and then top him off with a bottle to ensure weight gain. The details are hazy, but I want to say by 3 months (6 weeks adjusted for him) he had the hang of it to the point where I didn't have to do both types of feedings at once. I don't really have any concrete advice except to stick with it if you want to nurse, it does get better as they get bigger, stronger and less sleepy! And if it is too much for you, then that's okay and give yourself some grace to say okay maybe just pump and do bottles exclusively (or formula, whatever works for you!).

DD was only four weeks early but was an incredibly lazy nurser in the beginning. I used the Medela SNS with pumped milk a lot in the first few weeks. Started with it at every feeding and then just kept dropping one at a time until we weren't using it at all.

http://www.medelabreastfeedingus.com/products/853/supplemental-nursing-system-sns---sterile

@sillymilly: My DD was actually late but my milk was super slow to come in and I had a really hard time breastfeeding in the first 2 weeks so we did the try the breast, feed pumped breastmilk in a bottle (sometimes formula), then pump circus and it sucked! But she got the hang of it around 2 weeks after she was born and then we EBF and I breastfed her until 22 months! @yellowbeach just had a preemie and I believe is now nursing since her DD is finally at home and out of the NICU--she may have some tips for you? Good luck, stay strong, and don't beat yourself up like @Mrs. Blue said. Fed is best!

My LO wasn't early but did have significant breastfeeding issues at first. I second the recommendation of an SNS instead of bottle. We were able to overcome our issues and are just now weaning at two years old. Best wishes to you!

@sillymilly: I think due date is a good benchmark, but every baby is different! I forgot to add that I had to use a shield pretty much always to get my son to latch, I don't know why it helped him and I didn't care about weaning him off of it so I never bothered for the entire 10 months we nursed. Maybe that is something to try too?

Good luck, whatever you decide - there is no wrong choice here. A happy mama and a fed baby are the only things that matter.

My twins were only slightly early at 36 weeks but they were only 5lbs and while they nursed from the beginning we did supplement in the beginning after their first take at the breast. Once they had gained weight and were stronger we are able to exclusively breastfeed but it still takes two or three gos, so its feeding, burping, feeding, burping, feeding and final burp and that times two. They are 6 nearly 7 weeks adjusted and I really hope that we'll get to nursing in just one or two sittings (1 sitting = nurse + burp) soon. The only way this currently works is that luckily they were put on a 4h-schedule in NCU and we stuck to that, so there is sometime between feeds. Ultimately my DH and I had decided that we'd see if BF worked out again (I nursed my first two successfully for over a year each) but should it get too much that we'd switch to formula. But so far so good...

Hope it'll work out for you soon!

My guy was 3 weeks early and 5lb 12oz and we had a very successful BF experience... I am still nursing him once a day at 15 months now. Your routine sounds very time consuming but you should be proud you got as far as you did! You got your tiny off to a great start!

@sillymilly: What great news! Congrats!