Day 36, Sunday, December 19

It was a frustrating day for me today. I was really hoping he would just take to the bottle and go, but, like everyone warned us, that’s just not happening. I guess I thought since he had started doing so well at latching and nursing that we were already ahead of the game. But I guess the bottlefeeding is a whole different ball game. I keep reminding myself that it took us a week and half to get to where we are now with the latching and nursing, so it will just take more time. But it’s hard to be patient.


He only took 10 ml at his noon feeding today. We did find out that the nurses yesterday were using a different nipple so I was very hopeful that would make all the difference today, but it didn’t. He didn’t gag like he was yesterday though. We should have been using a slow flow nipple and the one they gave us yesterday wasn’t. Hence the gagging because the milk was going in his mouth too fast. Tate fell asleep pretty quick and we couldn’t get him to wake back up or take the bottle anymore after that 10 ml. We tried burping him and undressing him but he was out. Guess maybe all that sucking he did at midnight did wear him out too much.

At 3 pm I kangarooed him but again, he was pretty tired, so he didn’t nurse for very long before going to sleep. Jamie fed him at 9 pm and he did get him to take 25 ml so that was actually a good feeding, but Jamie didn’t feel like it was because Tate almost brady’d once ( His heart rate dropped pretty low. We call it almost because it didn’t drop low enough to set off the monitor because he was able to recover before he actually had a bradychardia.) and it was a lot of work to get him to keep sucking. But it was 10-15 ml more than what he’s done the last few days, so that is progress.

Tate gained other 65 grams and now weighs 2177 grams or 4 pounds, 12.8 ounces. Getting real close to 5 pounds!

That’s really all I have for today. The nurses and doctors warned us that this is the longest, hardest part and we just have to be patient. So I’m trying. After every feeding I wonder if I should have done something different or pushed him harder to do more. But then I think – he’s a 4 week old preemie. You can’t push. So we wait. And wait, and wait and wait. At least, that’s how it’s felt the last few days.