Eating Camp

Who knew that "teaching" a baby how to eat would be so frustrating?! Well it is!

Lincoln is doing great with his recovery from surgery. After the swallow test, he has been losing tubes (which is great). He only has one IV left in his leg that will remain in until right before we take him home because he is still receiving antibiotics through it, but other than that (and the heart monitors) we are tube free! It is much easier to hold him!

But Lincoln is having a little bit of trouble learning how to eat. Thursday was his first real day to eat every 3 hours. He was aspirating still in his lungs and eating too aggressively (swallowing too much) which would cause him to choke. So they decided to call the OT (occupational therapist) for some help. She brought with her a TON of information (none of it written down so my head was spinning with all the info!) and some helpful tips to help him eat. After she observed his eating behaviors, she decided that Lincoln needed to put on Simply Thick. It is a gel that gets put into the milk and makes the milk a nectar texture. It requires Lincoln to work harder which will slow down his eating and it will flow to the esophagus and not to his lungs. Basically it is like drinking a shake through a straw. If Lincoln can not eat better with the nectar texture then they can make it a honey texture to where he REALLY has to try hard to eat. Lincoln also has a hard time staying awake for his feedings. He is currently eating every 3 hours and is only allowed to eat for 30 minutes. He needs to be eating the minimum of 45 ml but they want him to be eating 60ml each time. Lincoln usually starts his feeding doing great then will get sleepy and will not work at all! That is frustrating! I think Lincoln has a hard time falling asleep during the day due to the noise in his NICU pod (the baby girl across from him is a preemie and requires a lot of attention, which means a loud ventilator and many nurses coming in and out to check on her) so he jumps at any noise and has to be go back to sleep. I am pretty sure this is the cause of his sleepiness in the day because the nurses at night say he eats great and they never have a problem getting him to stay awake to eat. So that is frustrating to me as well because he can't sleep due to noise which causes him to not eat which is keeping him the NICU. The nurse practitioner told me today that she would try to find a quieter place for him but I am not holding my breath due to the large amount of babies in there. We did take his noise machine to the hospital and the night nurse used it and he was sound asleep this morning when we got there so I think it helped (Thanks for the tip Paige!) The nurse told me today that she does not want to try nursing because she thinks it will be too hard for Lincoln, which is different from what the OT said, so I am not sure where are on that stance. The surgeon comes back on Monday so I am hoping Lincoln is eating well enough by then that we can take Lincoln home!

So that is all we know now! We are just trying to get him to eat without falling asleep. I think his cousin Phoebe needs to come and teach him how to eat...that girl can eat!

Sweet Lincoln....the OT thinks his "worried look" is precious, I agree! This boy always looked concerned or worried about what it is going on!
Giving Lincoln a pep talk before eating

Just a sweet sleeping picture....look no feeding tube! He has Shane's dimple chin.

Thanks for keeping up with us! We can almost see the end in sight, which is exciting! Sorry that my blogging is not daily. I am at the hospital all day (usually from 9am until about 8pm) and when I get home I crash! I will try to get better!

Thanks again for all the prayers!

Until next time!

Carrie