72 hour breastfeed – Keeping up with the Hoffmans

Today had its ups and downs. After yesterday’s conversation with E’s team, I was excited to get to the hospital today and try breastfeeding. When I mentioned it to the nurse this morning, though (a new nurse we’d never had before), she said, “we usually don’t try that with babies who have breathing problems.” I instantly felt disappointed — and a bit defensive. First of all, he’s on 1 liter of oxygen and we were told we could try nursing once he got down to 2. Second of all, he has chronic lung disease, so by her standards we’d never breastfeed. Third, despite the CLD, he’s been doing pretty well lately (and the doctor said he’d hesitate to even label him CLD at this point since he responded so well to the steroids) so her “breathing problems” comment rubbed me the wrong way. Thankfully I was able to talk to the lactation consultant, who was still on board with trying today, and the doctor was in agreement this was the right time too. So the nurse finally agreed.

The nursing went pretty well. He would latch and then fall off, latch and fall off, and then went to sleep after about 20 minutes of this. So I don’t think he really got much and they didn’t bother weighing him before and after to check, but the LC said it was a great effort for his first time, considering how little he still is. Our plan is to do this once a day until he starts to get the hang of it, and then we’ll kick off the official 72 hour breastfeed. Meanwhile, he’s still getting full meals via feeding tube.

Unfortunately, his reflux seems to be bothering him quite a bit today. He was desatting a ton and he just sounds so uncomfortable when he breathes. This evening at one point he even sneezed and milk shot out his nose. It had been over an hour since his last feed so it was all his previous meal that was backed up all the way into his nose. It’s frustrating listening to him snort and grunt and not be able to help him.

This evening I went to barre for the first time since before I gave birth. It was good to be back, but I definitely felt like I hadn’t been there in two months! I am definitely going to be sore tomorrow, but it feels good to work out again. I’m back to my pre-pregnancy weight, but I just feel squishy. I need to build up some muscle tone again. I grabbed a quick beer with my friend after class and then headed back to the hospital for the night. I have a feeling we’re in for a long night with all the snorting and desat alarms.

Weight was up 78 grams tonight, bringing him to 4 lbs 13.5 oz.

We had another good day. Relatively uneventful in itself, though we are on the cusp of some pretty big milestones and I had some good conversations with the nurse about our plan of attack.

As far as today goes, the biggest news of the day is that they turned his oxygen flow down to 2 liters. So far he’s handling the change very well and doesn’t seem to even notice the difference. His weight was up another 11 grams this evening, bringing him to 3 lbs 13 oz. In just two weeks he has put on a full pound, which is fantastic.

As for the big stuff on the horizon … we learned today that in about another week he could both be in a crib, and be breastfeeding. We knew these were possibly coming soon, but today we got some more specifics on how the transition for each works.

For the crib, the first criterion is size. It usually happens around 1800-2000 grams, but 1600 grams is the minimum weight. He’s currently 1728 grams. The second and more important factor is temperature. Currently his isolette is set at 27º Celsius (80.6º Fahrenheit) and it needs to be able to maintain his body temperature for 24 hours at 23-25º C (73.4-77º F). They’ve already started dropping the temperature on his isolette a little each day, so as long as he keeps handling the change without a drop in body temperature, they think he’s on track to be in a crib in about a week. This is particularly exciting because then we can put clothes on him and can pick him up whenever we want, instead of having to schedule one long hold each day.

For breastfeeding, sometime around week 33 or 34 (he’ll be 33 weeks on Monday), they’ll start scoring him on a scale of 1-4 every time they come in for cares. 1 means he’s awake and showing strong hunger cues like sucking on his hands or rooting. 2 means he wakes up when he’s handled and shows some hunger cues. 3 means he’s briefly alert with cares but shows no hunger cues, and 4 means he sleeps through cares with no hunger cues. If he goes 24 hours with all 1s and 2s then they start the “72 hour breastfeed” which is like breastfeeding bootcamp. During this time they want me around as much as possible so I can nurse him whenever he’s hungry. After those 72 hours they are fine mixing breast and bottle, but those first 72 hours are critical to breastfeeding success. Since it will take a while before he’s eating efficiently they will weigh him before and after each feed, subtract the amount he’s taken in via nursing and make up the difference with the tube. Once he’s getting 80% of his feeds via breast or bottle, they will remove his feeding tube. It can be a long process and we’ve been told this could very well be one of the things that keeps us here until close to his original due date as he learns to work for his food.

So that’s the plan. I love me a good plan.

Tag: 72 hour breastfeed

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