We love Dr. Brown's

Dr. Brown's bottles that is. Why do we love them? Because RILEY loves them and that is all I need to know. He may take some other kind, but he does NOT like the latex nippled one's they have at the hospital. So for now, Dr Brown's it is.

Yesterday, His 10am and 2pm bottles were eating in their entirety with he help of a squirt or two of tootsweet. Then...at 5:30pm, Jay gave him that bottle. We always tried the bottle without tootsweet first. 3 minutes later...jay hears the sound of sucking on air and don't ya know Riley had slurped down the entire 20cc faster than he's ever drank any amount and NO tootsweet involved. AND he was smacking his lips and fussing as if he wanted more!!! 10pm was a repeat of that feed. AWESOME. He slept through 2am and 6am. I am sure that he will stop sleeping through the night soon, maybe tonight even.

Today, he was allowed 30cc by bottle at 10am. That is 1 ounce. Again, in about 3 minutes flat, the entire amount was GONE! Then, the nurse gave him his dose of phenobarbitol and Riley promptly vomited up the phenobarb AND the milk. UGH. In rounds, the dr wanted to go back down to the 20cc from the day before and then advance by lesser amounts per day. I asked if we could PLEASE try him at his 2pm feed with the 30cc again, since there would be no phenobarb chaser after that one. He kept it down. Not even a wet burp or hint of a spit-up!! So the doctor agreed to let us keep the 1oz volume and Riley did great all day. No spits at all. HOORAY! He has bloodwork tomorrow morning to check his liver function and as long as it is no worse, they will stop the phenobarb for good and just leave him on his actigall. They are also adjusting that schedule so that it won't be right at a feeding. His Zantac he will get in between feedings as well.

The other big change today was his tube feeding schedule went from 3 hours fed, 1 hour off to 2 hours on and 2 hours off. About 15 minutes prior to time to feed, little mister Riley started showing signs of being HUNGRY!!! And then would GULP his bottle down today. I cannot WAIT for speech and OT to come around Monday morning. I think they are going to be sooo suprised. Riley was a disorganized bottling MESS yesterday and now, he's eating like a normal baby. Granted, he's perfectly satisfied at the end of that 1oz. His stomach has to gradually stretch to accomodate the higher amounts, and as that happens he will want to drink more and more from the bottle.

So...so far, Riley is handling these feeds, and the increases like a CHAMP! Seriously, he could NOT be doing any better than this right now. I am SO proud of him. He is working SO hard on coming home. The discharge nurse educator has put up the dicharge checklist in our room and so now we have videos to watch and things to get done so Riley can come home once he's bottling all his feeds. His broviac will be unplugged from the IV pump tomorrow most likely and a heparin lock placed on the end of it so it can be flushed until it's removed later this week. We are asking (ok me) about where to buy ostomy supplies, prescriptions for all those supplies if needed, etc. On my grocery list for tomorrow is diapers and cotton balls and rubber gloves and all the things we will need that can be bought at a regular store for when he comes home. It ACTUALLY seems like there is an end in sight now. It's pretty exciting.

Last night and today, we took Riley around the NICU in his stroller. He just LOVES to go for those strolls. It isn't a lot of ground to cover, but our first complete trip around, takes about 40 minutes as every single nurse and doctor and nnp we pass has to have a peek. And of course, he flashes him his fabulous smile and they are under his spell. What is so funny, is almost every single nurse that see's him, always says something along the lines of "ooooh I was in there rocking him early this morning", " oh he's the baby in the room near the break room, i go in to see him every time I go on break" and things like that. They also say, if he's crying, and they happen to be walking by, they will go in to see if he lost his paci or something but almost every time, as soon as they walk in and speak to him, he stops crying and just smiles. Poor guy, hates being alone. he just wants someone to talk to him. They have wheeled him around the unit in his stroller themselves and let him sit out at the nurses station at night when he has been awake. So sweet and we just LOVE that so many people take an interest in him. We really cannot be there 24/7, so it helps to know he's not just ignored when we aren't there.