Food, Glorious Food!

(Oliver! was one of Kelly's and my favorite movies growing up.)

To come home, Dylan must learn to eat.  He has to be taking all of his feeds (8 per day) by bottle (or breast).

Right now Dylan is getting 38 mls of fortified breast milk every 3 hours.  He started on 2 mls of breast milk about 2 weeks after birth.  He stopped eating for awhile around his surgery and since then he's been slowly increasing in amount and calories.  He's handled all of the increases extremely well.

The only problem is reflux.  Dylan gets Prilosec to control the reflux (which is extremely common in all babies).  The reflux often causes him to have bradycardia, where his heart rate drops.  The Prilosec helps and eventually he will outgrow the bradys and the reflux.

Our biggest struggle is feeding.  The nurses bottle feed Dylan if he is awake at his feeding time.  He's taken anywhere from 5 to 15 mls - a far cry from where he needs to be.  But the nurses tell me that one day it's like a light switches on and the baby just gets it.  We are still waiting for that to happen, but it's very normal for him to be where he is at.

We have also been practicing breast feeding a couple of times a day.  I say "practice" because they don't figure it in to his overall feeding amount because he doesn't take much.  But he can latch really well - he just doesn't do it very frequently.  Again...it'll come.

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But remember how I said things would move quickly after Dylan reached 3 pounds?  He hit 4 pounds 4 days ago!  Today he weighed 4 pounds, 5 ounces!  It's absolutely amazing to watch.  He is changing so quickly and is such a cute little boy!  His hair is even long enough to style if we really want to : ).  He's got chubby little cheeks on his face...and new this week: butt cheeks!  Bring on the chub.

Dylan also had his first photo shoot.  Thanks Grandpa Paul!

Here's a sneak peak:

His shirt says "Gift to all the Ladies."  I thought the nurses would like it : )

Here are some other favorites of the week.

See the spiked bangs?  This was fresh after a shampoo.

I just love this one...