Keep On, Keepin' On

Well, after coming back from the Lactation Consultant and Doctor's Office, we're finally back home and it's already 1 pm. At 10 am we met with Melanie and tried nursing. Ellie however, didn't actually transfer anything - after nursing - and we thought she was swallowing, but we were really trying aggressively to get her to latch on. So apparently she worked harder than she was taking in. I guess I had thought that Ellie was latching on, but really her suck isn't strong enough to create a vacuum latch that is needed to really get milk like's she supposed to. Obviously I have no frame of reference, so learning that now...is a little frustrating. Also, we noticed that she has a groove in the top of her palette of her mouth. Sometimes this could be because of intubation - but then again, Ellie was only intubated for about two days. She just isn't curling her tongue and sucking well enough - hopefully this will get better with time as she continues to grow and develop. In the mean time, prayers for Mom as I'd sure like to be breastfeeding more than one time a day! But with her decrease in eating lately, I sure feel more comfortable with knowing how much she's eating! On to the Doctor's appt - Dr.Duff checked her out and everything vitals wise -heart/lungs sounded good - so it's not like she's having to "work harder" to eat or anything. He said that we're just going to keep watching her and we'll just have to push through this little hiccup of not eating very much. She weighed 7 lb. 4 1/4 oz. today - which she was 7 lb. 4 oz. on Monday. He said we're going to do weight checks for a couple more weeks. I told him that I had been breaking his rules of trying to keep feeding time down to 20-25 min. I said it was taking more like 30-35 to get her to eat 40 some feeedings, and 20 the next...he said it's ok, "break the rule" let's just try to get her to eat! And we're going to start watching more cues for "on demand" ranging from 2 - 4 hours (no more than 4) and see if that has some effect too. We obviously can't go up anymore in calories - and we're continuing with 24 calorie - adding formula to the breastmilk every feeding. I would also like to point out that he did take the copy of our excel spreadsheet that has how much she eats, daily average, output patterns, special notes about her feedings, etc. and said we did a good job of tracking Ellie's every move!! :) He also said it was helpful so he can figure how much she will need to be eating per day so that she's gaining weight. I asked if he could let me know that magic number of how much per day she's supposed to be eating (it's a formula based on her weight) and he said "nope, I'm not going go give you that number. You don't need to worry about that, that's my job to figure and make sure she's gaining" - I just laughed, I said it's probably best that way. What a good answer Dr.Duff! For the gunky eyes - he actually said it was a tear duct thing. DUH...why didn't I think of that! I guess I'm just so parinoid that she's going to get sick, that I forget the simpler things like that. We got some drops to use for her eyes for the next week and then he taught us how to exercise the tear duct with our finger (like 2 times a day). So we'll hopefully get rid of that gunk! I asked him about symptoms to watch for with colds - and where I thought mucous and sounding congested was a good one to watch for, he said that with babies since they are such mouth breathers that it's hard to tell if it's their nose and just boogers or their chest. He said to watch her color and breathing - if she's having to breath really hard, seeing her ribs really badly when she's trying to take breaths in, wheezing, that kind of stuff - then it's probably cold like symptoms. Good to know. Dr. Duff also mentioned how Ellie has a lot of little friends that also come see him. He's like, man, she's famous around here! :) Too funny! I know it's all you moms who read the blog...and yes, we all love Dr.Duff. He's doing a great job with Ellie's care!