Preemie gulping bottles too fast and choking

[holdontohope]

Hello, l

My baby was born at 35 weeks and will be 38 weeks on Friday. Her lungs were immature and she spent 2 weeks in the NICU. All other tests were normal. She is a great eater and doesn't need forcing at all.

She had a few Brady episodes, only when eating, in the hospital, they stopped completely before she could be released. Since then, the nurses had to show me how to feed her so she doesn't gulp too fast and choke. It's so nerve wrecking, but I am SO happy she is home!!

Anyone have any advice on how to help baby slow down eating?

When will she grow out of this?

I am working on bf, but she gets tired quick. So for now she is takes NICU bottles with my breast milk.

 

[angelandbump]

My little boy had such a poor sucking reflex that he would get too tiered to fast so he was put on a fast flow teat, most preemies use fast flow teats.
If your babies teats are fast flowing then maybe try a medium flow or even slow slow teat x

 

[AP]

Yep i was thinking a change of teat too, and feeding her on her side helped us.

 

[Collyrocks]

Glad I'm not the only one having these troubles. Feeding time terrifies me! Just the pre choke quiet freaks me out. It's getting better but my lo just did it twice this last feed so I'm frazzled

 

[holdontohope]

Thanks girls!

My little one is on a slow flow nipple because I am going to try and put her fully on the breast when she is strong enough. I am slowly starting to see improvement in her eating over the last few days. Hoping this is her starting to grow out of the preemie stuff. 2 more weeks and dr said she should be past all this.

How scary though!!!! I won't let anyone else feed her because of these terrifying choking episodes

 

[Skadi]

My daughter used to do this. She started going blue on a nurse during a feed because she choked on milk at one point it was so bad.

With Keira it was because she was forgetting to stop and breathe and then when she remembered she would choke on the milk. Changing the flow of the nipple made no difference. She rarely did it when nursing though.

To fix it we had to count to 5 and pull the nipple out and make sure she took a couple breaths before letting her drink again.

 

[Heramys]

Hi,
I'm currently trying to get away from the NG tubes so been trying to both bf and bottle feed.
They've just started to become better with bf and two days back they also feed the whole milk portion through a bottle a few times a day.
Only thing is that it seems to go very quickly with bottles. We are giving them breast milk and with vary flow teats / slow flow teats. It seems to be over in just a few minutes sometimes and I'm worrying that is way too fast. It's 35 - 45 ml (1.2-1.5 oz) at a time.
Is there a recommended time they should feed on? They're almost 37 weeks gestational age now.

Thanks.

 

[angelandbump]

Even with slow flow teats, babies don't have to work as hard to get the milk and tend to drink a lot faster. I bottle fed my son breast milk and I am exclusively bf this time and it takes so much longer to feed this time.

There is no recommended time as far as I am aware but it may be worth always offering breast first then just give a small top up with bottle (if you don't already do that) x

 

[sunnylove]

Hi,
I'm currently trying to get away from the NG tubes so been trying to both bf and bottle feed.
They've just started to become better with bf and two days back they also feed the whole milk portion through a bottle a few times a day.
Only thing is that it seems to go very quickly with bottles. We are giving them breast milk and with vary flow teats / slow flow teats. It seems to be over in just a few minutes sometimes and I'm worrying that is way too fast. It's 35 - 45 ml (1.2-1.5 oz) at a time.
Is there a recommended time they should feed on? They're almost 37 weeks gestational age now.

Thanks.

I wouldn't worry if your LOs are sucking down bottles fast. There's no real time limit except that they shouldn't feed on a bottle longer than 30 minutes. Do you feed them more after they suck their bottle down? They may need more food.

 

[Heramys]

Thanks for your replies ladies. I'm having a bit of trouble with my nipples cracking even with shields. Also when they've bf they're not interested in any more and they're completely flaked out after a bottle. However since posting they've managed the speed better by themselves and feeding seems calmer now.
And the tubes are out! Fantastic feeling as they pulled them themselves and just transformed into normal feeding babies all of a sudden.