ex machina
the eric update - day 64: first bottle feeding from pops! progress, the micropreemie way.
in my continuing efforts to provide evidence that i am not one to shirk my fatherly duties, i'm happy to present photographic evidence that i am capable of feeding my son without drowning him or otherwise causing any grievous bodily harm. woohoo! perhaps due to my superior bottle feeding skills, he managed to make small work of the whopping 29 ounce cc ( d'oh! there's a big difference between ounces and cc's! ) feeding in about 12 minutes, with nary a burp or sign of reflux!
he's looking right at the camera and it's fun to imagine that he might be waving to his fans all over the world.
eric has been getting fed every two hours, but today they decided that it was time to move to three hour feeds, as he's been doing so well eating over the past few days.
when micropreemies are very small their stomachs can't handle very much milk during feedings, so they feed them less milk more often. but as they get bigger, they can feed them larger volumes less frequently; so it's a great sign that he's transitioning into three hour feeds, and it's yet another little, tiny step towards getting out of the nicu.
in another bit of progress, micropreemie style, eric's had his isolette temperature turned down from 30 degrees C to 29.3 degrees C which means he's rapidly getting even better at holding keeping his body temrerature stable all by himself. when the isolette tempterature reaches room temperature ( about 26 degrees C ) and he approaches 1800 grams, then he'll probably be ready to move to an open bed. tonight, eric gained an ounce and weighed in at 3 pounds 11.1 ounces or about 1675 grams, so it's possible that he could hit the 1800 gram mark before the end of the week.
9/06/2004 10:59:00 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
29 *ounces*?!?! That's almost a quart of fluid! I hope you meant CC's.....
By 
, at
6:59 AM
Exactly what I was going to post! Even my bruiser, who came into the world just shy of 11 lbs., takes only 7-8 ounces at a time. ;-)
By , at
7:53 AM
d'oh! well, i guess i it's nice to know that people are actually reading the posts so closely :-) you're right, i meant cubic centimeter and not ounce, as there's a big difference between the two. thanks for the correction!
Great job on the bottle feeding! I missed a couple days of posts and cannot believe what progress he's made!!
stacy
goodwillstacy.com
By , at
8:12 PM
Wow - he's already made so much progress! He's got Ethan beat on stretching his feeds to 3 hours. I wonder what he'll do when he gets home? It would be awesome for you if he stays on that routine, but all babies are different. Ethan would start showing hunger cues like clockwork every two hours until he was about 3 months old - I'd swear he was wearing a watch! Adam fed almost constantly 5pm to 8pm, tanking up before bed, and then would sleep 6-7 hours straight. (Of course you know never to "schedule" feedings once he's home - never "hold him off" until a certain time-- go entirely by his cues, rooting, smacking lips, etc. http://www.nursingmom.com/gettingstarted-givingmilk.htm in fact, if you notice that he's showing these cues in the hospital, let them know that he's hungry, even if it hasn't been 3 hours!)
By , at
8:41 AM
while he's at the nicu he's on a pretty strict 3 hour schedule. for a variety of reasons he won't get fed before the next three hour increment. mostly this is due to the rate at which micropreemies can digest food, since often there will be a cc or two left in the stomach even after three hours.
but since he still has milk in his stomach, we know that any signs he's giving are probably not because he's hungry. i've heard that micropreemies leave the nicu on a fairly regimented 3 hour schedule that doesn't usually waver after they get home.
Eric is just amazing - everytime I poke in here to read he's doing something else incredible! So happy to hear about his appetite ...
~ laura (finally de-lurking)
By , at
11:04 AM
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