Updates: January 31st - 29 days old

Well, I think it is safe to say that little Mario has mastered the bottle feeding skills. He took his full bottle (50mL) each time he was bottle fed today (6 feeds) and got very good scores on his nippling skills.

He continues to do very well breastfeeding. We are doing two full feeds of breastfeeding per day right now (the noon and 9pm feedings).

Tonight his weight was down slightly, only by 5 grams. He now weighs 5lbs, 10.8oz. No one is concerned with 5 grams. It could be variation in the scales or something simply like whether he pooped before being weighed (which he did tonight) or after. He is also expending more energy while he eats now, so slight fluctuations in weight are to be expected. They would get concerned if he lost, say 20 grams every day for 3 or 4 days in a row, but not with the 5 grams tonight.

We started go over things for his discharge paperwork and such. If he continues to do as well as he is doing and doesn't have any naughty days, discharge could be in the not so distant future. I won't post dates here yet, because we don't want to jinx it :) Dom and I are well aware that this is a day by day thing and things can change in an instant. So, we are cautiously optimistic.

We brought the car seat in tonight so they can do the car seat challenge with him over the next few days. For that they put him in the car seat for an hour and just monitor him. They check things like his color, respiration rate, heart rate, oxygen saturation, etc.

We also started to talk about a date to room in with him. This involves me, and likely Dom too, spending either a full day or full night alone with Mario. We will be in our own room down the hall from the NICU and he will be off monitors. They want us to be there for at least 3-4 feeds. Basically, it's a dry run for coming home to give us a change to get comfortable with caring for him off the monitors, ask any questions, and have nurses just down the hall if something should come up. Right now, I plan to do that either Friday or Saturday night.

As you can tell, it's looking very promising that we are nearing the end of our stay in the NICU. So, keep us, especially Mario, in your thoughts for the next several days. Keep sending good thoughts that things go according to "plan" and we're on our way home with him soon.