One Fat Baby!

6 LB 2 oz!!!

It's great that he is still putting on weight. His feedings and oxygen needs aren't really progressing, but they keep telling us to be patient. (we're faking it)

It's hard and weird now that he is getting to be the size of a full term baby, it feels like you should treat him like a baby. But since he was so premature, his development is still all off. We try to wake him up just right and at the right time to feed him. It takes very little to throw off his eating, causing him to get the food through his feeding tube, and not be able to come home.

We get there around 15 minutes before each of his two daytime feedings, the ones where he's trying to learn how to do it him self.

These are the basic steps:

First fold back the blanket that is over the crib about 6 inches so a little more light gets into the crib, don't fold back the blanket all the way, and don't turn on a light, don't talk to him or touch him at all. Talk quietly in the near vicinity for about 5 minutes, during this time he kind of senses the change and our presence, especially Kristen's, and he will usually move a little.

Next we fold back the blanket all the way, still not touching him, or talking to him or very loudly, then we wait for a few minutes more and he may start to squirm a little more, but his eyes will still be closed.

Next we will turn on the dimmed over head light, still not talking much, (this is where I have to force myself to not actually climb into the crib and curl up around him) as he starts to stretch and grunt a little. His eyes wont be open yet, but you will notice that he isn't exactly asleep anymore.

Then you untuck one side of his swaddling. Sometimes this happened too soon and you can tell his cues change, so if he is till just squirming you continue to wait a few, if he started to get mad you might try to gently and firmly hold the top of his head to calm him back down. Still not talking to him or playing with him.

Next, and this is the big one, you untuck the other side of his swaddling... the days this doesn't make him mad you know you've done a good job. If he is grunting and turning bright red or fussing, then you go back a step. At this point we might say something directly to him, but still are trying not to talk much. This has taken 15 minutes already, maybe more.

Soon he starts opening and closing his eyes slowly wich means you are on the right track.

After his eyes are staying open more than closed you throw caution to the wind and put the thermometer in his arm pit, which feels completely unnatural. If you skip to this step too soon he gets shocked awake which is the worse thing for feeding.

He hates the temp so we calm him down after before continuing. You can prick his heel for a blood sample and he doesn't even notice, but put a foreign object in his armpit and hold his arm down and you'd think we had taken away Christmas.

After he is re-calmed, it is time to really really make him mad by unsnapping one snap somewhere on his onesie, just one of the snaps is all the cue he needs, or moving his pant area in any way. They say that after two days babies, even preemies, have figured out that when anyone messes with their drawers they are going to get a diaper change, and he gets pretty wrathy from beginning to end.

Now keep in mind that "mad" and "wrathy" are relative terms. Lots of babies fuss, but when Greydon fusses it means he is getting over stimulated and he still has a hard time processing that much info. Fussing is still really dang cute, and in reality it's not that impressive of a display, but it's the only way he can tell us what he is ready and not ready for, the occupational therapist has been very informative, it's fascinating.

After the diaper and the temp it is time to do the pre-test weight. I always do this since although I have nipples, they're not good for much. I like doing the weighing, it makes me feel trained, fathery, involved.



I UNHOOK all of the monitors.(and I am drunk with power) Well the leads (the various things stuck to him) stay on him, but I unplug them all from the larger wires going to the monitors. It sounds funny, but not anyone can walk up to a baby and start disconnecting wires, it's nice to be the dad, who can.

There are three leads (pronounced like lead a horse, not like the metal) that come from his torso. The white lead is on his upper right side, the black lead is on his upper left side and the red lead, green wire, is low on his left side, the foot lead gets switched from left to right foot every three hours. Then I take him and his blanket, hold him for a second because I can't resist, and take him to the scale and zero it out. You then disconnect the oxygen! Make note if the extension valve is going onto the scale or not and wrap up all of the extra tubing and place it inside the scale also. After it has been zeroed out you weigh him with diaper and blanket and maybe the pacifier and the oxygen tubing that is still connected to him.

The weight you get is compared to the weight after he tries to eat to see how much he got. That is why you have to know exactly what was in the scale the first time so you can recreate it. A ml of milk doesn't weigh very much, and just the o2 tube hanging outside of the little bucket can throw it off.

I'll veer from my detailed description here.

He tries to eat.

After he eats you never really know what you are going to get. Sometimes he seems like he is doing really well, doing everything right, but just isn't swallowing hard enough and the last weighing shows he didn't eat anything, and you swear that the machine is faulty, so you re-weigh and it says the same. Other times he barely even tries except for a minute or two, but did great during that minute and he gets a bunch... it's really frustrating for Kristen, she feels like she should be able to do something besides be patient.

And all of that slow calm wake up is to make sure he is ready for a feeding, without being too tired still, too stressed out, or past his awake state and back to tired like happened this morning while we waited for the doctor to be "right there" (which translated to 30 minutes of extra waiting-29 too many, didn't eat at all)

After he eats and Kristen holds him for a while, Kristen has things she has to go do while I get to hold him. After he eats he has reflux, so he will be happy for a while, but then will get the hicups or act like he is going to gag. That's when his oxygen swings the most. So if he acts mad, you straighten him back out because he probably started to curl up with you before he refluxed. Sometimes that is enough, but usually he will stay a little fussy until he is more done digesting.

For a while he is peaceful and these are my favorite times to hold him. He'll be happy and awake right after his feeding, which is great and cute. But when he starts to get sleepy he is just a warm bundle of love that makes me float 3 inches off of the chair.

Then, it's weird, he gets too tired, or too relaxed. Eventually he is too tired from sleeping in your arms. It's like even realizing that he is with someone takes energy. He wont wake up but his oxygen will start to swing all over the place even though he looks like he is just laying there asleep. It's possible he is too relaxed and forgets to breathe, that's one current theory. That's when you put him back into the crib. At this point it has been around two and a half hours, almost three. During that holding time the nurse has put the tube of milk into the machine that pushes it into the tube slowly. And hooked up his feeding tube. The amount in the machine was determined by the second weighing. We just leave the feeding tube hooked up to the machine when we put him back so they don't have to do anything but start his next feeding without messing with him. He isn't ready yet for back to back feedings, it's too much work for him. So he tries to eat eat at 10am and 7pm and then tries to get a bottle at one or four in the morning. We aren't there for those bottle feedings. Sometimes we shift around the schedule so we are there for the bottle. That is an entirely completely different process I won't explain tonight.

He gets something every three hours. For now three times a day is all he can handle trying to eat on his own, the other times are just the machine putting it into his nasal feeding tube.

He is a cutey, every one at the hospital always tell us how beautiful he is. Even the 7 foot tall eye surgeon, Dr. Carver (really his name) stopped in the middle of explaining his eye development to us, to tell us how perfect Greydon looked.



We happen to agree.