Updates: January 19th - 17 days old

Mario made a lot of progress with his bottle feeds today. He took a bottle at several of his feeds and started out the day doing 20-22mL/feed over about 20 minutes and getting the rest over the pump. However, at his 6pm feed he took his entire feed, 43mL, by bottle in 18 minutes! We're very impressed by how much he is progressing with that.

They increased his feeds again today, to 43mL. But, everything else remained the same. Dr. Nathan, the neonatologist, said that they will start weaning him off the feeding pump this weekend by going from 60 to 30 minutes and seeing how he does with that before reducing the time further. Of course, the more feeds he takes via bottle, the less he needs to be tube fed. He's also doing very well with breastfeeding. We did that twice today and he has no problems figuring out what to do in that area. Though, he did fall asleep at the end of our 9pm session ;)

Tuesday and Friday nights are bath nights for the little man. Tonight was the first time we got to do a full tub bath, because he has finally lost his cord. He did very well with the bath and it really seemed to relax him (hence the falling asleep at the end of feeding).

His weight was up again tonight, he now weighs 4lbs, 12.6oz! He's up another ounce from last night. I can't believe how quickly he's growing and putting on weight.

He had one episode today that required some intervention, but his episodes overall are getting much better. He had gone 3 days without needing intervention, as opposed to multiple ones a day needing help. Several of the nurses have said that they noticed at 34 weeks things really seem to click for the babies and their episodes get much better and they nipple feedings better too. Mario will be 34 weeks in a few days, so it looks like he's right on track with things.

Tonight Mario's Uncle Ryan and Aunt Corissa came down from Canton for a visit. They brought his cousin Owen (3 months old), but Owen couldn't come back in the NICU due to age restrictions. So Ryan and Corissa took turns coming to see Mario. They are in town through tomorrow, so they'll visit him again.