I'm home on maternity leave with my second who was a preemie at 32,5 weeks. Her sister also came early at 34 weeks but we never had the same problem with her. Specifically: grunting and straining and making noise all the time. All. The. Time.
Apparently this is just a feature (bug, I say) of preemies that they eventually grow out of. In the meantime we can't get sleep. Right now one parent sleeps in the other room and the unlucky parents gets to listen to her grunt all night long. Grunting is moderately better if she sleeps on my chest, which naturally breaks all advice on safe sleeping. We have tried her in her bed, in ours, in a semi-upright bouncy chair, on our chests. I wear earplugs and have blasted a white noise app. She has been on an antacid and I am using gas drops. I have (mostly) eliminated dairy. And yet sleep continues to be a challenge.
Any tips? The hospital doesn't do returns or exchanges, and in any case we have decided she is kind of cute and we want to keep her after all. ;)