Elijah is officially a week old, it seems like its been a lot longer than just a week. My mom came to get me this morning for Elijah's 7am feeding, when we got there we got good news, he had taken 12 mils at his 1am feeding and 17 at his 4 am feeding. This was after not even waking up at his 10 pm feeding Wednesday night. Of course the good news made this momma very happy. His bilirubin numbers went down from 9.8 to 9.3, so not a huge loss but a loss nonetheless so we will take it!
Elijah was pretty alert and awake this morning, he was having a difficult time with his temperature. The nurse bundled him up in two blankets and said we would recheck his temp after his feeding. He took about 14 mils from his bottle and they finished the rest with the NG tube. I snuggled him while they fed him, but as soon as it was done I put him back in so we could recheck his temp. It was still a little low so they turned the heat up and she said she would recheck in 15 minutes and if it wasn't higher they would get with the Dr. I went home and waited about 30 minutes to call and check, she said it had came up and he was sleeping peacefully.
Steve made it home early again so we were able to make his 10am feeding, the Dr's were doing rounds so we had to wait for them to finish. We didn't get in there until about 10:30 and he was awake and seemed very eager to eat. The occupational therapist came over to meet us and sat with us while we fed him. She was extremely nice, I really can't say enough good things about 99% of the staff at the hospital .She gave us a plan for how to feed him to hopefully cut down on him getting fatigued so quickly. We are only supposed to lay him on his side facing out from the feeder and let him have 5 sucks at a time and then tilt the bottle so he takes a breath, then lift the bottle again and repeat. He did well with his feeding and took about 14 mils. We didn't get to snuggle him long since it was so late and we want to 1)keep him on his schedule and 2) get him as much time under his bilirubin lights as possible.
I called to check on him after his 1pm feeding and they said he wasn't even awake so they didn't attempt to feed him. I took a deep breath and decided not to panic myself and just hope that meant something good for his next feeding. When we got to the hospital for his 7pm feeding we had good news, seems his extra long nap did him good because he took 27mils at his 4pm feeding. So it looks like the plan is working, he napped and when it was feeding time he ate really good.
He was super awake at his 7pm feeding, he was looking around and taking things in, he didn't cry during his assessment at all. They said he is showing no signs of having any bowel loops and his temp was staying up nicely, both pieces of good news. We started out the feeding with his bottle and he took about 17mils before he decided he was done. He is really getting good at showing hunger signals and letting us know when he is done feeding. They assure us letting him take his time learning instead of pushing it is the best way to go and we really agree. It may take him a little longer to come home than we had originally hoped but as long as he is getting stronger we will do what we have to! After his bottle we held him while they fed him through the tube, he was looking around the entire time, they told us to give him his pacifier while he is getting his feeding so he associates the full feeling with sucking. He took his paci really well and actually started taking 5 sucks off the paci and then stopping.
I am taking this as a sign he is slowly starting to learn the process of eating and sucking. I did a lot of reading about preemies and eating last night and time and time again I read that this is a very common reason that babies have extended stays in the NICU. People said that fortunately when the babies get it they get it and never look back!
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