When I got there, your nurse told me that you only had one episode over night, but other than that you did really well with your bottle feeds. I got there in time for your care and to bottle feed you. You were sort of sleepy, but were still showing cues. You took 8 ml for me. I held you after your feed and waited for the doctors to round.
When they rounded this morning they said that they wanted to increase your feeds to 55 ml every three hours. They said that you were taking 25% of your feeds by bottle now (so excited about that). They said that we need to continue working with speech with your feeds. Your eye exam will be next week. You are on a human milk fortifier right now, and they said that you can't come home on that specific fortifier, so they changed you today to a fortifier that you will be able to come home on. I also found out that they stopped your caffeine yesterday and you haven't had any episodes that weren't related to feedings!
For your 12 pm feed, you took 10 ml. Speech came for that feeding and showed me more tricks just incase certain ones are not working on you. Originally we were using a pillow under you and you were laying in front of me horizontally on your side. Today, she showed me how to hold you in front of me, on your side, vertically, without a pillow. I would have to say that todays positioning is more comfortable. She told me a few other things that she wanted to work towards with you, like beginning to keep the bottle in your mouth but tilting it to the side so that when you suck you don't get anything in between drinking. Speech will be back tomorrow to work with you again.
Before speech left, I asked a couple questions that I was curious about because the doctors said it was up to speech. I asked if you could come home without taking full feeds, and they said that it happens all the time. I also asked about taking your feeds over an hour and how that would work. They said that you wouldn't be able to go home until your feeds were gravity feeds. That is something that we need to work on. They said that as long as you don't keep having episodes, we will continue to bottle feed and that we will not need a swallow study. Let's hope that you continue to improve everyday!
I told daddy that if he came at 3 pm, he would be able to see you eat. Unfortunately, you decided you wanted to sleep instead of eat. You took 1 ml and then fell asleep. The only good thing about that, is that you would get some rest and hopefully be wide awake for your next feed at 6 pm. Hopefully daddy gets to see you eat soon! We left after your feeding because mommy was very tired - I fell asleep on the car ride home!
When we got home, I had a few things to do before I could lay down and rest. I called your nurse at about 6:45 so that I could see how you did with your 6 pm feed. She told me that you were wide awake and that you took 30 ml! You did an amazing job! She said that she wished that we were there for it, but I told her that I was just happy that you took 30 ml! I really like the nurse that you had today, and she is going to be there again tomorrow.
I hope that you continue to do well with your bottle feeds. I can't wait to hear how you do overnight. It seems like you keep doing better with practice every feed. I have a couple questions to ask during rounds, and I can't wait to hear the plan (if they have one yet) from here on out. You are doing so well!
I will see you in the morning. I can't wait to feed you again tomorrow! Every feed is one more step closer to you coming home! We love you and are so proud of how far you have come. See you in the morning!
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