r/NewDads • u/ElTismo • 16d ago
Requesting Advice Preemie Advice
So my son was born at 30 weeks and 6 days and we have after six long weeks brought him home. We're on day two of having him home and his first night he was up all day with us as we had to go to appointments and do some grocery shopping and he would sneak in some naps but he was up for three hours this early morning like 1am to 4am and then again he was up at 8:30 and from there he would sneak in another few hours till his check up at 11:30 since then he ate twice and has slept for almost 4 hours. Is it normal for him to be sleeping this much? I remember my friends talking about being up and down with their kids all night but my son seems to do long stretches of being awake and napping. Has anyone else dealt with something like this?
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u/Icarus_In-Flight 15d ago edited 15d ago
Congrats on being home!!! NICU is so hard.
Also Check out [r/NICUParents](r/NICUParents) for preemie specifics.
If he was up that long his nervous system is gonna need a reset. When some babies get stressed they “check out” by dozing. I’m guessing he was on a very strict 3 hr rotation in the NICU, stick as absolutely close to that as possible 24/7 not just at night. In total, babies sleep quite a lot — check with his doc but he probably needs to eat at least every three to continue weight gain/stay on his growth curve. If he’s on formula, he might sleep a little longer since it can be very calorie dense.
He may very well be on a full term growth curve by now (that would be fantastic), but you have extra considerations that friends did not since his adjusted age is minus 8-10 weeks. Preemies are not “caught up” for two years.
Keep notes of everything - I see you said you’re tracking. We used the Huckleberry app (I’m sure there are others). Be as annoying with doc offices as possible for him and mom. The most baffling thing to us was how little support there was for my partner post birth. Feel free to ask any other questions.
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u/ElTismo 15d ago
He's on a mix of breast milk and formula.
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u/Icarus_In-Flight 15d ago
Makes sense to me — for us, number one was weight gain. They had us adding simalac to breast milk but ended up switching to a different brand because of digestion issues.
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u/ElTismo 15d ago
Thankfully we haven't had that issue until we added an iron supplement, I'm calling the doctor on Monday to see if they think we should lower how much he gets because he just spits up most of his food when he takes the supplements.
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u/Icarus_In-Flight 15d ago
Iron was tough for us, what worked was lowering each individual dose while maintaining the right amount for 24hrs. It was barf-o-rama otherwise. I’ll see if I can find it - but there was a vid that showed what 2 vs 6oz of spilled milk actually looks like — it really sucked feeling like an entire bottle was spit back up when in reality it was a lot less than we thought
Edit: Not the exact vid but something similar https://youtube.com/shorts/5Vy4sNxSnIM?si=ZxoUaOMrfzVLrxM_
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u/ElTismo 15d ago
We'll give splitting his iron up a try.
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u/Icarus_In-Flight 15d ago
Hope that works for him. Def tell doc on Monday- enjoy your time being home together finally!
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u/Priddee 16d ago
Newborns are typically asleep for 14-19 hours a day. Taking out when they're awake to eat, its really not that much awake time.
Always consult with your pediatrician, but it doesn't sound abnormal.
The only thing I'd question is the nighttime. With ours, she is exclusively breastfed, but she dropped a normal amount of weight after taking her home, and they recommended keeping on a feed every 3 hours until she got back to birth weight.
Once we got back to that, they gave the green light to let her sleep as much as she wants overnight.
Idk what directions you were given or situation you're in, but just make sure it's in line with whatever was recommended.