NICU and pacifiers, bottle feeding?

[WantsALittle1]

Our NICU has a pro-pacifier policy, and since the nurses can't stand by my baby's bassinet 24 hours a day to soothe her and attend to her comfort needs, their solution is to offer self-soothing via pacifiers. We had *never* intended to let our daughter have a paci, and now obviously our plans have been forced to change because she was born 8.5 weeks early and is in someone else's care at the moment.

Did anyone out there with a NICU graduate have any trouble taking the pacifier away after your baby was discharged from the NICU? Also, did any of you have trouble going to exclusive breastfeeding after discharge? Since I can't spend my entire life at the NICU waiting for Jeannie to get hungry and feed, she will be getting most of her nutrition through a bottle. This is *also* something which we hadn't intended to do until she was 3-4 months old and I return to work.

Anyone have any advice?

Thanks!
xoxo

 

[25weeker]

We used a pacifier in the hospital as well. It is good to give them it while they are being tube fed so they relate sucking to a full stomach. We roomed in a couple of nights before discharge which allowed me to breastfeed her night and day. She came home fully breastfed. Like you when pregnant I said I would never use dummies but my daughters comfort was more important. TBH she didn't use it loads when she came home and then at 3 months corrected she decided she didn't like dummies anymore and when I put one in her mouth she made noises like I was shoving the thing down her throat.

After that I never offered one again although there were nights when she wouldn't sleep I was wishing she would lie and suck on a dummy

 

[Dinah93]

Bliss actually recommend the use of dummies for preemies. It has been proven to help them learn the sucking action, be less likely to choke on milk, and reduce cot death if dummies are used to soothe them to sleep. I was extremely anti-pacifier, then a nurse gave me this Bliss research and now I'm happy for her to have it (Bliss recommend until 6-9 months adjusted) because cot death is a huge fear of mine.

 

[toothfairyx]

I think they are fine too. Jamie was a very sucky baby and had the pacifier until he was 1, gave it up no problem. It also helped him with his reflux and there were no problems breastfeeding even though he mostly bottle fed in hospital.
Jonny used one a bit during tube feeds but they mostly just induced a massive vomit when we tried it at home so he didn't have one, but as 25weeker says there were times I'd have loved him to use one. Listening to him cry himself to sleep wasn't nice.
all in all I do think I would class myself pro-pacifier and as long as they are gone by around 12 months there should be no dental problems.

 

[Srrme]

Both of my premature babies (28.6 weeker and 35 weeker) used a pacifier while in the NICU. They were also exclusively bottle fed in the NICU. As soon as they came home, I began exclusively breastfeeding (still going strong at 22 months, and 9 months), and they both gave up the pacifiers and never looked back (I honestly wouldn't have minded them using a pacifier, but they refused to, haha).

 

[WantsALittle1]

Both of my premature babies (28.6 weeker and 35 weeker) used a pacifier while in the NICU. They were also exclusively bottle fed in the NICU. As soon as they came home, I began exclusively breastfeeding (still going strong at 22 months, and 9 months), and they both gave up the pacifiers and never looked back (I honestly wouldn't have minded them using a pacifier, but they refused to, haha).

Awesome, just what I was hoping to hear! I've been really scared of the whole nipple confusion/preference thing and wondering how I can stave that off when the NICU insists on bottle feeding our little girl.

 

[Srrme]

Both of my premature babies (28.6 weeker and 35 weeker) used a pacifier while in the NICU. They were also exclusively bottle fed in the NICU. As soon as they came home, I began exclusively breastfeeding (still going strong at 22 months, and 9 months), and they both gave up the pacifiers and never looked back (I honestly wouldn't have minded them using a pacifier, but they refused to, haha).

Awesome, just what I was hoping to hear! I've been really scared of the whole nipple confusion/preference thing and wondering how I can stave that off when the NICU insists on bottle feeding our little girl.

I was scared too! I thought it would be a lot harder to transition from bottle to breast, but it wasn't. My 28 weeker, Elias, was in the NICU for 60 days, and took a bottle the entire time once he started oral feeds, so it's not like he wasn't on the bottle long. My 35 weeker was in the NICU for 3 weeks, and was started on oral feeds almost immediately, so he too was on them for a while. I had read so many horror stories about women not being able to breastfeed because of nipple confusion, etc.

If possible, breastfeed your baby in the NICU as often as possible, and as often as they allow you to. That should help a lot.

 

[HLanders]

My girls were 35 weeks... They can go from paci to bottle to nipple shield with no problem. I'm starting to wean them off the shields, and when they're not too fussy they have no problem. I'm hoping to wean off the paci, because when they try to use it at night they cry as soon as it falls out.

 

[mommyof3co]

I had planned to give a pacifier anyway, all of my boys have had one, I think they can be quite beneficial. But while Preston was in the NICU when they started backing off on his sedation, but he was still on a vent, he started sucking on the tube in his mouth so they got him a special paci that would work around his vent tube to suck on. Had I wanted to take it when he got out I could have done so easily but we kept using it..and still do.

As for bottles...I was SO scared to breastfeed him. He was so weak and I know nursing is more work so I was scared that by pushing the nursing I might set him back and delay him coming home. So I pumped and gave him just bottles. He had his first bottle at 11 days, only had bottles until 15 days and nursed for the first time at 15 days and once he latched that first time (very easily in fact) he never needed a bottle again! I really thought we'd have more problems due to the bottles but he did surprisingly well.

 

[Dinah93]

I think it's easy to assume it's the pacifier's fault if preemies won't latch, but the nicu nurses were very clear to me that some of them (more and more so the earlier they were born) just can't get the hang of it. I pumped for 10 weeks, and after 34 week (6 weeks old) we tried to combine breastfeeding with tube feeds (no bottles) and we did this until 38 weeks when they told me if I ever wanted to get her home we should try her on a bottle as she just wasn't getting the hang of breastfeeding - and she took to the bottle immediately. As it happens I had to start on some very toxic medication at 11 weeks old which meant I was forced to stop expressing and she'd have gone onto bottles anyway (and then later she's ended up on mega high calorie formula as she still has a poor suck and we're awaiting a speech and language therapist assessment, there is no way she'd be gaining weight on Fortified EBM, she wasn't even gaining on nutriprem2), but from everything we've been told pacifiers can help them learn to feed from a bottle or breast, rather than hinder it.

 

[Kat541]

My baby was term, but in the NICU still, now 11 days later. They gave him a very long pacifier, to my dismay. The lactation specialist even told me the reason he won't latch to my breast is because it doesn't feel like his paci. So they have me use a nipple shield. I'm so discouraged, I feel there is no point even trying to get him to take my breast; I'll just pump and bottle feed him. I'm at least not going to make a big deal of it. If he takes a breast at some point, good. If not, he'll get a bottle. What does make me really mad is that the bottles they give him are full of air and he just pukes up what they feed him, and then blame him for not being able to keep it down. I bought those special bottles with the tube in them specially for keeping air out of his tummy for when he gets home. I can't believe the hospital doesn't use those.

 

[dizz]

Just laughing a bit at the bottle thing as it reminded me of something (my daughter was more pissed off at the sheer indignity of being expected to SUCK for her milk rather than have it just magically appear in her tummy) - when we were starting to move toward being discharged, the one nurse with an actual clue just advised us it was possibly worth bringing in some of the bottles we had at home to make sure she'd take them - rather than getting home and having a "shit she won't use these" frantic retail expedition out into town.

So we did - had them in our steriliser and were chugging along just fine (basically she's got no culinary standards whatsoever and will take anything)... and we finally get the staff to agree that someone will be on-hand to supervise the tube part of her feed for one feed (I'd had to do them ALL - no provision at all to leave the hospital and I was, to be frank, on the verge of suicide at this point after a living on the main bay of the most utterly hellish maternity ward in existence) so my MIL could sit in with her and we could go pick some supplies up (mainly clothes that actually fit her - I'd thankfully been hideously advance organised with everything else) and have a shower and a pee without having to unblock the toilet from bloodied maternity pads shoved down it, and remove 5 bloody maternity pads from the shower (I'm not exaggerating here).

I come back to find my MIL all prophet of doom "ooooh those bottles you bought her - they don't work at all, you'll have to buy new ones" (she does this a lot and it drives me up the wall!). These were utterly bog-standard Avent bottles and neither my MIL or any of the nursing staff had figured out that you needed to put ALL the bits that were in the steriliser together to make the bottle - so poor little mite had had a nice bath in the finest boob juice as it leaked all over her!

 

[toothfairyx]

My baby was term, but in the NICU still, now 11 days later. They gave him a very long pacifier, to my dismay. The lactation specialist even told me the reason he won't latch to my breast is because it doesn't feel like his paci. So they have me use a nipple shield. I'm so discouraged, I feel there is no point even trying to get him to take my breast; I'll just pump and bottle feed him. I'm at least not going to make a big deal of it. If he takes a breast at some point, good. If not, he'll get a bottle. What does make me really mad is that the bottles they give him are full of air and he just pukes up what they feed him, and then blame him for not being able to keep it down. I bought those special bottles with the tube in them specially for keeping air out of his tummy for when he gets home. I can't believe the hospital doesn't use those.

Kat my second one just couldn't get the hang of breast feeding and a pacifier used to make him puke. He was a nightmare on anything other than dr browns bottles. I ended up exclusively expressing for him and bottlefeeding him from a freezer stockpile. I wasnt happy about it but eventually accepted it. Sounds to me from your posts your lactate consultant isnt really supportive, can you get another one?