Nursing like a champ!

I visited Cayden yesterday evening.  Since switching his feedings to every four hours, he was having his care times at 10, 2, and 6, but they talked about switching him over to 9, 1, and 5 instead, so when I arrived at 9, I expected to feed him right away.  Apparently, there was a lack of communication between the day nurse and the night nurse, so she wasn't ready for him then.  We ended up compromising and starting his cares at 9:30 - Cayden woke up and was screaming-hungry, so it's a good thing we didn't make him wait another 30 minutes!

He breast fed the best he's ever done!  He was wide-eyed, awake, and sucking for 20 minutes and even managed to nurse from both sides.  The scale confirmed his efforts:  he got 35 ccs!

There seems to be some conflict in what different nurses think is best.  Some think it's best to make him to take everything from a bottle (or the breast) rather than letting him get it the easy way by gavage, even if it means he won't take as much as he should.  Others think if he's too tired to take it by nipple, they should let him rest and give him the rest of what he should get at that feeding without having to work for it so he continues to put on enough weight.  I know they need him to take everything by nipple before they'll let him come home, but I feel that maybe it's worth the wait to let him do it on his own terms and just let him gavage when needed.  The night nurse had the same mindset and this morning at rounds, the doctors agreed with her and put it in writing as part of his orders.  They're concerned he's losing too much weight.  (Last night he was down another 22 grams.)

As for his eye exam on Tuesday, we made some progress.  The right eye is still stage 0/zone III (which means there is no evidence of ROP and the blood vessels have grown out as far as they need to).  The left eye has grown out farther (it's now at zone III instead of zone II) but there is still stage 2 ROP.  If this is how it stays, my understanding is that it may not affect much besides his peripheral vision, if anything.  But the blood vessels aren't finished growing yet so there is still hope that the ROP will reverse itself and go away completely.

I'll be taking another night off from going to the hospital today.  Jamison has come down with ANOTHER cold .  I called his pediatrician just to be sure it wasn't his last cold turning into an infection of some sort, and after doing an assessment over the phone, she said it sounds like he caught another (viral) cold.  So I couldn't take him to daycare today since he had a fever this morning, and I've got no one lined up to come over tonight to stay with him, so Cayden will have to do without me for one night!