She's moving forward

The last few days have been all about getting Veda to consistently take her feedings. Two days ago she seemed to have turned a corner. She's hungry for those bottles! It's still quite a workout for her to get through a whole one, but she's doing it. Yesterday we had the feeding tube out and she was bottle fed all day. Last night all of her feedings were with the bottle except one tube feed (she's fed every 3 hours).



We are experimenting with different bottles to see what's going to be the best fit for her. Upon my good friend Molly's recommendation we tried the Dr. Brown's bottle a couple of days ago, and that was the easiest bottle feed I had ever done with her. Previously she would create a vacuum effect from her strong sucking power, and not enough air was making it's way in causing the milk not to flow. The Dr. Brown's bottle has it's own venting system that helps eliminate this. I fed her in 15 minutes with this bottle, including a burp session. It comes out a little too quickly though, and it can be a bit sloppy. They do have a preemie size nipple out there that I'm going to pick up today to try. The night nurse tried her on one of the hospitals standard bottles, to see how she would do now that it appeared she had the hang of it. She said that Veda did seem to loose less milk through the sides of her mouth and she was able to take the whole thing. The jury is still out on which one is going to be best for her right now. But once she's a little bigger and stronger the Dr. Brown's will be a no brainer for us. Thanks Molly!


I brought in a new musical toy for Veda to enjoy during her awake times. She's been waking up about a half hour before each of her feedings, and is very wide eyed and bushy tailed. I thought it would be a good time for her to enjoy the sweet sounds of Beethoven as she prepairs for her meal. It's nice to be able to drown out the white noise of the NICU as well.

Veda is up to 6lbs 2oz. She lost almost an ounce from yesterday. I think it was due to the amount of milk she was loosing through the sides of her mouth. We're going to weigh the wash cloth that I use around her mouth before and after her next few feedings to see how much she is missing out on. The scales we use are down to the gram so they're very accurate. From the looks of her wash cloths yesterday I wouldn't be surprised if they all totaled a full feeding lost.




We're not there yet, but we're close, so close I can taste it. As the doctor would say, about a week (he's been saying this for the past 3 weeks now!). I think he likes to keep us excited :)