Day 32

One month old

It’s hard to believe, but Robin is already a month old! Seems like only yesterday we were going to the hospital with suspected Brixton hicks. Since he was born, he has gained a huge 500gms! He is certainly looking chubbier everyday now, and his milk has been increased to 24mls every 2 hours. He’s slowly trying to catch up to Nicki – she’s expressing around 50-70mls per 2 hours, so still a lot more than he needs right now.

Today, Nicki finished her supervised gavage feeds as part of the parent gavage feeding training. This means that Nicki is now trained to feed milk to Robin via his nasal gastric tube. The nurses even made a certificate for her! She administered his milk unassisted at 7pm tonight. It was lovely to be able to feed him independently. It’s another step closer to coming home.

With gavage feeding, Robin is starting to learn when his tummy is empty or full. We’ve started to notice that he gets fidgety right before his feed is due, he looks around and makes little sucking motions with his mouth. These are all really great signs that we might be able to start introducing him to breast feeding soon. To encourage him further, Nicki has been putting a drop of milk on his dummy, and giving it to him to suck whilst his gavage feed is being administered. This helps him associate the taste of milk and the sucking reflex with the sensation of his tummy filing up.

Whilst Nicki was holding Robin today (kangaroo care) he did a massive fart and poo. It was so loud that one of the nurses heard it from the other side of the room – and commented. Luckily, it was all contained in his nappy, with no leakage. We did end the cuddle rather soon after that though, and gave him a big wash.

Visitors: Granny Suzy

Stats

Weight: 1760 grams

Air: Optiflow 4L/min, 21%

Feed: 24ml / two hourly (gavage)

Nurses: Jane / Debbi