We are Moving in the Right Direction! Day 65!

3 lbs 8 ozs

So we shall start with Calen's food as normal and it has changed quite a bit. They are really preparing him now for the changeover to breast-feeding. They make changes often in order to get him to this point. They started him back on his feedings after his little blood issue last week and they have fully resumed him back to his full 28 ml dose and have got his kilo calorie fortifier back up to 24 kcal. The biggest change all together is that they are switching him from receiving this amount over 2 hours to just giving it to him over 1 hour with a two hour break. They are moving towards what they call bolus feeding's which would be a common feeding regimen for an adult. So the plan will be to move him from feeds over 1 hour to decreasing it down to like 15 or 20 minutes, he will receive the total volume. Holly will be here at the hospital for 72 hours here soon in order to attempt breast feeding every 3 hours, this is will be an exhausting ordeal I am sure. 

We have made it back to high flow o2. He is sitting at just 3.5l flow and 22% oxygen air mix. So this is only 1% above normal breathing air and they will plan to decrease his flow over the next days to eventually see if he can wean down to no o2 at all. In regards to his breathing I was asked some question as to weather he would need any special devices at home or anything like that, and my understanding at this point is that if he was to go home on o2 or caffine then we would have an alarm system that would go off  if he was to stop breathing, so the answer is yes it is possible that he would need these things, we will just have to wait and see. The nurses that were asked about these questions say that it is pretty rare but it does happen sometimes.

Holly held him today and they are saying that we need to continue to do the kangaroo hold as we have been but that he is getting big enough and that he is holding his temperature so well now that it is possible that for example I wanted to hold him but didn't want to kangaroo hold him that it is possible that I could do that. 

We gave him another swaddle bath today. They are very enjoyable I think for both us and him at the same time. He becomes very relaxed during the bath and we get to see him without anything on him, I mean he is not inside of a box (the isolette) nor is he pressed up against someone's chest. It took Holly and I both today in order to give him his bath today. Our nurse wanted us to do it together so we would know what it would be like doing it at home. So it was fun, I did the washing, Holly held his head, and maneuvered him around so I could wash him all up.