Miles is now officially 4 lbs, plus a couple ounces, and pushing hard for the big 5! There is no set weight for us to be able to take him home but something about 5, almost seems full term and maybe safer. If indeed he comes home in 2-3 weeks as the doctors suggest he might, he would still be 4-5 weeks earlier than his official due date of February 4th.
For a little guy, Miles continues to be ahead of the curve in most respects. They are now bottle feeding him 3-4 times per day and he is responding really well for his age. He is usually able to take more than half (and sometimes ALL) of his bottle before tuckering out. Remember, taking a bottle is quite a bit of work for him and we dont want him to work too hard. We want that high calorie breast milk to add fat to his teeny tiny body not get burned up in the eating process.
Miles still has the occasional A (apnea) or B (Bradycardia), mostly when he is sleeping or eating (all of that sucking and swallowing make him forget to breathe). Caffeine is one of the supplements given to preemies to support their breathing. But based on his progress, he will lose that jolt this week, making him do it all himself. Seven consecutive days of no A's or B's are required for him to come home.
We still battle the eternal frustration of different nurses, different treatment. This is especially annoying now that we are working on bottle feeding. Before, I had a very passive role. I held him skin to skin but needed the nurses to dress, undress, swaddle and take him in and out of the isolette. It was luck if I was there in time to take his temperature and change his diaper. Now, I am able to pick him up as I please, am asked to dress him, change him, take his temperature and bring in more clothes. As he is only bottle fed one time per shift, I make a point of calling ahead to confirm his feeding time and let them know I will be there.
This morning, I called ahead and found out his feeding time had been moved for some unknown reason. When I arrived, the nurse had changed his feeding tube from his nose to his mouth after I had specifically asked to have it moved to support bottle feeding. Kinda hard to get a big bottle in your mouth when there is an annoying tube in the way, dontcha think? Surprise, surprise, the nurse also was not helpful in bottle feeding and reminded me that he was really too young to do it. Again, I heard that preemies are on their own timing and parents cannot push them. Yes, we know this. And, according to her, it doesnt matter where the tube is. Well, he only managed to get 5 mls out of 40 and was fed the rest through the tube. Frustrating.
When I came back later, it was another nurse and another story but fortunately, a good one. She took out the mouth tube and again told me the nose was much better. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. And of course, with her help, Miles did a great job and was able to eat more than half of his feed from his bottle. Plus, we had a bit of fun waking Miles up (see pictures)- a requirement for asking him to work on the bottle.
The only benefit of all this conflicting advice is learning the many, many ways to feed and care for a baby and I need A LOT of help. We'll see what we get tomorrow.
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