Sunday, August 10 - Good Eatin'

Kinley has nurse Katie back again today, but Katie has someone with her. It is another nurse. Katie is helping to train a new nurse to Children's Mercy NICU, Lacey. Well, she is not entirely new. Lacey did one of her internships here at Children's Mercy, but now she is an official employee. Katie and Lacey inform us that Kinley only ate 40 ccs from her 5:00 am bottle feeding. Also, Kinley's methadone dose is now down to 0.5 mg, based on the weaning schedule that the NICU pharmacist created.

Kinley's 8:00 am bottle feed goes much better. She took 70 ccs from her bottle. That is a personal best for Kinley. It helped that both Kathy and I were there to double team her. This may be more of an issue after Kinley is home because we will be working opposite schedules, but it is much easier to feed Kinley if you have two people. One to feed her and one to entertain her. If Kinley has someone keeping her attention while she eats then she does not fall asleep as quickly and therefore can eat more.

During Kinley's morning milk coma (her nap between feedings) we finished the first book of the Harry Potter series and began the second.

Kinley and I reading Harry Potter 2

Me trying to contain Kinley's excitement

A close up of me containing excitement

Kinley ate 60 ccs from the bottle at her 11:00 am feeding and another 65 ccs at her 2:00 pm feeding. The bottles we have been, and are currently, using only holds 60 ccs. (Please see pictures below.) So if Kinley wants more than 60 ccs we have to stop feeding her to re-fill the bottle. This tends to give Kinley time to fall asleep. Next time (at 5:00 pm) we will try using a bigger bottle that can hold all 90 ccs of her feed.

The larger bottle didn't seem to help. Kinley took 60 ccs from the bottle, but we only counted it as 55 because she spilled so much out the sides of her mouth. Katie and Lacey added the lost 5 ccs to Kinley's NG feed.

After shift change, Rachael (Kinley's night nurse) had us get started on a checklist of items/information that parents need to complete/have before taking their child home from Children Mercy's NICU. Most of the items and information on the list Kathy and I already knew about or how to do them, but it had never been recorded that we knew them or had done them. One item that we had not done on our own was give Kinley a real bath. So Rachael had us give Kinley a real bath. Kinley did not mind too much and once it was over it was time to eat. Kinley did a very good job of eating and staying awake considering we just gave her a bath. She took 58 ccs from her bottle. Hopefully this means she is building up her endurance so soon she can finish an entire 90 cc bottle before falling asleep.