He was awake and hungry at 9 am and took his full bottle. When I got here about 11:45 am he was already awake so we put him to the breast. He latched right on and took 32 mls. Not his personal best, but a close second. I’ll take it! He had no problem finishing the last 20 from his bottle.
I have decided that if he has another setback today than I am going to put the breastfeeding back “on hold”. We didn’t do it yesterday since he was so tired and he had another great day. So if he falls back again today I think the breastfeeding is wearing him out too much. So we’ll see. I really hope it’s not the breastfeeding that is tiring him out but it is a lot more work for him. It stinks that it’s that way. It seems like bottles should be so much harder since breastfeeding is natural and an instinct for them. But it’s harder for them to get the milk out from breast than it is a bottle, so it burns more calories. The breastfeeding is so much more relaxing. Don’t have to worry about his breathing and choking like we do with the bottle. It’s relaxing for me though, not Tate.
The NP gave Tate new orders today. He is now on an “ad lib” schedule. Which means he is supposed to eat a minimum amount in 12 hours, but doesn’t necessarily have to eat the full feeding each time. He can have a max of 55 mls each feeding. If he doesn’t take his full feeding one time, then he should, hopefully, eat more at the next feeding to make up for it. This is one step closer to getting him home because this is the type of schedule they will send us home on. She also wrote orders to remove the human milk fortifier from his milk and replace it with Enfasure – which is what we’ll be using at home. Baby steps… Because he’s now on an ad lib schedule, the nurse took his NG tube out this afternoon too. Another step closer…
Tate took 50 of 55 mls at his 3 pm feeding. Angela (speech) was watching and she agreed he was too tired to continue because he started to get disorganized with his sucking and needed a lot of pacing. Tate held on to my finger the entire feeding and Angela took a picture of it for me. When she left Angela said she’d be surprised if we were still here Monday, but if we are, she’d be by to assess him again. This was his 10th bottle in a row! Definitely on a roll!
As I was getting ready to leave at 6 several of the nurses started telling my goodbye since they won’t be back on till next week. Tate was awake and ready to eat at 6 pm too. He took that full bottle with no problems.
He took his 9 pm bottle in 8 minutes for Jamie and his midnight bottle in 12 minutes. He finished both the 3 am and 6 am for the nurse as well.
Now that he has been moved to an ad lib schedule the next test he has to pass is doing all this work, eating all these bottles and still gain weight. Today he only gained 6 grams.
Could this really be it? We’re already so much farther than he was the first time when we thought we were going to go home. I am trying not to get my hopes up too much. But it’s hard not to.
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