Updates: January 30th - 4 weeks old

Mario continues to improve as far as his bottle feeding skills are concerned. He took 4 full bottles today, 2 partials, and 2 full breastfeeds. So, he is enjoying life without a feeding tube. He has a minimum amount he must eat in order to keep the tube out (35mL/feeding when he is eating from the bottle). He seems a lot happier without the tube, so we all are optimistic that he will continue to improve his bottle nippling skills. He still tires out toward the end at times and has to be paced in the beginning to try and prevent gulping, but even that is improving. He is also improving as far as his heart rate/oxygen saturation rate (A&B - apnea & bradycardia) episodes during feedings. He had the one I wrote about yesterday at the midnight feeding and a small one at the 6am feeding, which required a little bit of suction.

His breastfeeding skills are also improving (though, they have always been great for his age). His latch and suck are both getting stronger and he doesn't tire out as easily. He's taking less pauses between sucking sequences. So, I think he's getting more milk in less time now.

Tonight his weight was up to 5lbs, 11oz, a gain of .4oz from last night. It was also bath night tonight, which he seems to really enjoy.

I met with several people today concerning Mario's care. Unfortunately, today was his resident's last day :( We are really going to miss her and enjoyed working with her for the past four weeks. We'll meet the new resident tomorrow. I also met with the NICU nutritionist who told me that they are switching the fortifier Mario is on to the discharge formula. She also went over what I need to do to mix it with the breastmilk and such. This afternoon, Mario's occupational/developmental therapist, Betsy, had a session with him while I was there. First she checked his muscle tone , range of motion, etc., which are all right where they should be. Then she fed him his 3pm feeding to see how his nippling skills are improving. Betsy said she's very pleased with how he is progressing and talked with me about what her opinion on bottles I should get to try him with before discharge. She indicated that in the next few days they will probably want to start working with him on that so we can get him used to a bottle to use at home.

So, the little man continues to progress and show us that he's starting to think about the big "H" word, home.