Monday, December 10, 2007

3 pounds and 2.8 ounces... our little girl is just gaining weight!!

Yes, Little Allie is doing great! She is still gaining weight and holding her own. We are hoping that soon we can begin to try to feed her without her tube for all her meals, but that will be a slow process and the doctors want to get her a little bigger. Basically, the more they do for her, the more she won't burn calories trying to do it on her own. The feeding tube makes mealtime easy for Allie. Soon, though, we will try to bottle feed her. The trick will be for her to learn to suck, swallow and breath all in perfect harmony. Who said being a baby was easy? We take this stuff for granted, but little preemies have to learn it all. When she does get the hang of it, she will only be able to eat a portion of her meals that way since it will take so much work, so it seems like it will be a slow process. However, she has gotten even more fiesty and seems t o like to pull that feeding tube right out of her body! So, my thought is that she might encourage the doctor's to begin to think about trying the bottle.

Allie was very alert last night - Day 21- she has her eyes open and was fussy a bit. This was unusual for her since sleeping and glancing around quietly are her favorite passtimes. Last night, she was fussy and even cried a tiny bit. I'm thinking she might be getting hungrier and perhaps we will be able to up her food a bit. They say they go through a growing spurt at 3 weeks old. Of course, she isn't on schedule with a full-term baby because she was born so early, but perhaps it is the same for 3 week old preemies.





1 comment:

Unknown said...

I got a present for my little one today!

I can't wait to give it to her!

Love, Auntie Trisha