Time to Eat!

Today was a good day.  Late yesterday the doctors took the CPAP off my little guy and he is doing great.  We decided to visit last night (which is odd, because normally we visit during the day), so we were wonderfully surprised to see him alert and awake and WITHOUT any oxygen.  No ventilator, no CPAP, no high flow cannula.  Nothing!  So we got to spend some really great and much needed time with him, and also got to help give him a "bath,"* which is something we have never gotten to do.  The nurse couldn't believe that this was our first time helping with bath time, considering he is now 79 days old, but we usually aren't there during the night shift.

*Bath actually means laying a water proof pad down on his bed, cautiously scrubbing him with wet, soapy cloths, meticulously avoiding his battle scars from surgery, then quickly drying him with a blanket and getting him dressed again.    

So it was a good time, and today, because he is doing so well off of oxygen now, the doctor decided he can begin bottle feeding again.  At first, she decided he could try once a day.  But I went to see him, and talked to the nurse and doctor, and explained that he was taking a bottle three times a day before surgery.  So after he drank just about the entire bottle this afternoon, she said he could try three times a day, and we'll see how he does. 

This is a big deal, because he cannot go home until he can eat his entire bottle at every feeding (eight feedings a day).  The doctors start slow, to see what babies can do, and increase bottle feedings until they are drinking a bottle (or breastfeeding) at every feed.  Therefore, to start with three feedings a day instead of one gives us a little bit of a jump start. 

If he does well, they will let him try to eat on his own four times a day, then six, then eight, until he is eating well enough that he can GO HOME.  So for now, it is time to eat up, and show the doctors that he is strong enough and capable enough to chug those bottles and grow big and strong!