Tuesday, March 3, 2009

March 3 Two Bottles of Milk on the Agenda


Colton is moving upwards with his bottles. He will try two bottles today. He finished his first bottle today at 11:00 am in 16 minutes with his OT and his doctors decided he should try a second tonight at 11:00 pm with the nurses. He is receiving the same amount of milk, 49 mL, but they are adding 4 packs of extra calories to his feedings to make sure he is getting enough calories. He weighed 5 lbs 11.4 oz today, up .1 oz from yesterday. His stomach is not able to take any more milk at this time with his reflux. If he does well with two bottles, they will add in a third and so on. The Neonatologist told me today that many babies get stuck and have a bit of a set back when the 5th bottle is added in because then they have to do back to back bottle feeds which the babies find very stressful. He is currently using the Dr. Brown's bottle system which the OT thinks works very well for him at this time. Bret and I will get the opportunity to try to bottle feed him in the very near future. He remains classified as "difficult" for bottle feedings by the OT but she assures us that he is much safer now. His neonatologist said he can try some non-nutritive breastfeeding beginning next week!

Colton also had a visit with the Opthamologist this am. He passed this screen for ROP (retinopathy of prematurity) and will follow up in 2 weeks as all his vessels have not matured at this time.

The hospital also called today to set up a car seat check for Colton, which is one of their steps for discharge planning! This is the first step of discharge planning we have seen! It doesn't mean discharge is coming very soon, but it is a step in the right direction.

Today was the first day I drove down alone to see Colton. The drive went as smoothly as it can in Houston. Our round trip mileage is around 72 miles. The trip down can take anywhere from 45 minutes to over an hour depending on traffic and the same for the return. The bad news is the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo begins tonight. This will significantly increase traffic in the area of Texas Women's Hospital and may potentially block one of our routes that we use. I think the rodeo lasts for 3 weeks. It will be a race to see if Colton gets home first or the rodeo ends.

In Colton's picture today, he is showing off his little "foot blanket" made for him by his big sister, Sydney! Isn't that sweet!

Thanks again to everyone for all their support. We have definitely needed it this past month.

Check back tomorrow to see if the little man ate his second bottle in a timely fashion!

Wendy, Bret, Sydney and Colton

1 comment:

Angela said...

Wendy and family, What a sweet little man you have! Congratulations. I will look forward to checking in on your blog to see how Colton progresses!
Angela Mason and the kids