Feeding & Growing

Tyler has been doing really well feeding and growing. Last night he weighed in at a whopping 4 lb - 10.4 oz. He has been gaining approximately an ounce per day, which is on target with what the doctors want (1/2 to 1 oz. per day). His feeding tube was removed yesterday and he has been taking all his feedings by bottle. They will reinsert the feeding tube if he gets too tired for the bottle, but so far he is a good eater! He also gets to nurse once or twice a day, but is still too underdeveloped (and my milk supply is too low!) to do an entire feeding by nursing.

Tyler's umbilical cord stub fell off on Tuesday so he got his first bath on Wednesday. He quite enjoyed it and did not want it to end!

Today Tyler got his first massage. Is this kid pampered or what? I took an infant massage class at the hospital last week. While massage is good for all babies, it is also very beneficial to preemies in the NICU and so they have a class targeted for NICU babies. Today one of the nurses supervised while I did the massage. Tyler seemed pretty content during the massage and only got fussy when I massaged his tummy.

According to the doctors Tyler may get to come home within the next week. (Gestationally Tyler will be 35 weeks tomorrow.) The feedings are on track and he has to continue to take all feedings by bottle and gain weight over a 2-day period. He also has to go 5 to 7 days without having any breathing/heart rate episodes, which are common in preemies who are still developing. Essentially they forget to breathe and their heart rate dips until someone rubs their back and reminds them to breathe. Tyler's episodes are becoming much less frequent. He had one last night, but hadn't had an episode for 3 days before that.