The breastfeeding plan

First I have to share that Allison has started purposefully batting at toys in the past day or two. It's really fun to watch. :)

Ethan had a gas of 99 this morning, and he was fussy from 4 am - 1 pm. Needless to say no breastfeeding happened today. I did meet with Kristy, the nicu occupational therapist. (She is wonderful! So many creative ideas to help make this a success!) We had a long discussion about what to do to make this a good experience, improve his sucking pattern, and get him the calories he needs. The plan begins with finger feeding, which involves taping a feeding tube to my/Chris's/nurse's(?) finger. Essentially he gets the same tube feeding, but he gets to suck and swallow rather than have it down the tube in his nose. This should help teach him to suck rather than bite, which will be a plus for all involved!

This whole process seems a bit overwhelming at times, but I'm really committed to trying it. I just don't want to miss out on the opportunity for him to learn to breastfeed if he can. Perhaps I'm trying to make up for Sunday's bottle fiasco, I don't know. I know there are huge obstacles (I might scream if one more person reminds me of this...); I just want to be able to say that we gave it the best try that we could.

Ethan's 6pm gas showed co2 of 66. How does this happen? 99 to 66 in half a day? The only change that was that they took away the two diuretics that he was on and replaced them with daily lasix. Oh, but I just realized that yesterday was his first 'off day' from the steroids. So by this morning his co2 was crappy. He got the steroids today, and his 6 pm co2 was great.