Let me start by saying, there are lots and lots of books out there. Add to that, the great lactation consultants and doulas that you can hire to actually show you how to do the things in the book. To implement the EASY (Eat, Sleep, Activity, YOU) method, to show you how to properly use the 5 S's and most importantly, how to get your baby to latch onto the boob (its not as easy as we are led to believe.) And if that's not your style, you can also find Attachment Parenting (Dr Sears) helpers as well.
All of these methods tell you what your baby should be doing at each stage, based on week, whats normal, etc. For example, babies go through growth spurts at 3, 6 and 12 weeks. In those times, they eat more, often up to every 2 hours or as one friend experienced, straight for 8 hours, giving her a 20 minute break once to pee. But I digress...my point of all this is that all of these great, well-researched, well-intentioned methods take one major point for granted. Age!
Miles is now 11 weeks old (and well over 8 lbs if you wanted to know) but according to the doctors, just one week corrected. He has been bottle feeding for over 7 weeks, breast feeding for 6 and on a feeding schedule, well since he was born. So why is this a problem you might ask? Well, he is a newborn now. He is fussier, a lot fussier, he wakes up more during the night, has longer periods of "quiet alertness" all of which means, we get much less rest. And in our despair, we look to the very books and consultants that should be able to help us.
And from the classes at Day One to the $250 visit from the expert lactation consultant to the books that line our shelves, it is ever more apparent that when it come to preemies, we are on our own. No one can quite answer the questions like, "so if a full term baby can start sleeping through the night at 4 weeks, what does that mean for Miles?", "Since his stomach is the same size as a full term baby, should he eat on demand now, even though he was on a schedule before?", "And if so, how do we put him on a schedule again?" and so on.
So, we've gone rogue. We are making up our own rules, mixing up some Karp, some Weissbluth, Dr. Sears, the Baby Whisperer and the Nursing Mother's Companion book. We switch out the bottle and breast feeding, we sometimes let him cry, other times, he sleeps on my chest (if its the only way I can sleep), we offer the bottle after breast feeding and sometimes we don't, we keep him to a 3 hour feeding schedule unless he wakes up more often, we offer the Activity before the Eating (key element of EASY), taking it all a day at a time, watching and learning from our amazing son.
In short, we rely on ourselves. But I'd be lying if it werent for a huge heap of advice from the mothers of preemies who've come before us. Thanks to Amy, Jessica, my girls from the Pump Room, and Inspire Preemie message board.
And for the record, it seems to be working. We are just as tired, frustrated and elated as any other parents of a newborn.
3 comments:
Hi Rachel, I love reading all this. You're right-- a few years from now this will all be a distant memory and your two-year-old will just be a two-year-old, not an adjusted anything! I only say this because my plain-old-7-year-olds are about to be plain-old-8-year-olds and I have "misplaced" some of the memories of those early preemie days. Speaking of which, Gabi has spent the better part of the past few months searching for a gift for Miles that will be on par with Piggy and did finally find something. I'm noticing I don't have your address to send it to-- I'm sending you an email to get it.
Gentle hugs to the big guy from all of us!
yay, I get a shout-out! I can't believe how MUCH i feel your pain... it seems like there is so much advice out there for everyone except us. The frustrating thing about the preemie resources is that preemies are all over the map, so there's no way to predict what comes next.
But that is one thing I like about Weissbluth: he always adds "...and for a preemie, it'll probably be this." Of course, he just says "go by adjusted age," but at least he acknowledges us.
I find the adjusted age works OK for now. PS what is that, a swaddler with a tie on it?? ADOR!!
Please ignore all the advice in the books. If it were that easy mothers would never bitch anything. Ever. The books as far as I'm concerned just serve to make you feel inadequate and often confused. The books says he/she should be doing this, so why isn't he/she doing this? Because he/she is its own little person, with its own little personality. It's taken me 3 children to learn this. Let them guide you. They really are your best teacher. Miles is beautiful by the way, good job Halls!!!
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