A very tiring night and day

Mommy and Daddy had their second straight night of rooming in, and it has been very tiring for Mommy.  Josh is feeding every three hours, which means that after Mommy has breastfed Josh and them pumped, she is only getting sleep in an hour and a half to two hour increments.  The doctors suggested that Mommy skip one feeding time a night (not breastfeed or pump), and so she is going to try that tonight to see if a shot of about 5 hours straight of sleep will help, because otherwise she will not be able to keep this up for very long.  The nurse practitioner also increased his breastfeeding attempts to every 3 hours as tolerated.  So far Josh seems to be doing well with eating every 3 hours - Mommy will still skip one feeding tonight in an attempt to get some rest.

Josh seems to be breastfeeding well, but when the nurses weigh him before and after his breastfeeding session, he isn't gaining very much weight, which is suppose to be an indicator of how much he has eaten.  They say that since he is so small, he may not be sucking very strongly, or very much, but so far we have not had a single feeding where he gained more than 10 grams (roughly equivalent to 10 ml of breast milk).  So this has been frustrating for Mommy, because Josh seems to be eating well, and he needs to be taking all his nutrition orally in order to go home.  Josh also lost 5 grams yesterday, and so is now 1,880 grams (still 4 pounds 5 ounces).  The doctors are pushing bottle feeding when he is not being breastfed, but we have heard so many stories of babies that are given the bottle who stop breastfeeding because the bottle is just so much easier (requires less work to get milk).  Also pumping is not a good way to keep up Mommy's milk supply indefinitely, and so once bottle feeding starts, the vast majority of the time so does formula feeding, and breast milk is just so much better for Josh than any kind of formula.

In other news, Josh's doctors are talking about taking him out of his isolette in the next few days.  This of course will make it much easier to pick up and hold Josh whenever Mommy and Daddy would like to.  We choose to delay this transition for a few more days because of the extra calories required for Josh to keep himself warm.  Josh has an MRI of his head scheduled for Friday, which is just a standard test that they run on preemies before discharge to make sure there isn't, or hasn't been any bleeding in the brain.  Josh finished his course of tylenol today, and was a much happier baby than yesterday (when he got 5 shots of immunizations).

Prayer Requests:

• Josh gain weight consistently, and not lose any weight
• Josh develop a stronger suck so that he can get more food at each feeding
• Josh do well holding his temperature so that he can be moved to an open bed
• Josh not get sick or develop any new infections while in the NICU
• Mommy's milk supply increase to meet Josh's demand as he grows
• Mommy be able to get supernatural rest when she is able to sleep

Praises:

• Josh is close to moving out of his isolette
• There are open rooms for Mommy to room in at the hospital so that she can try to feed Josh as often as possible (Daddy is going home for a night of rest, chores and cat petting)
• Josh tolerated his first round of immunizations very well

(Josh in hospital loaner clothing after he pooped his previous outfit)

(A proud Daddy spending some time with Josh after work)

(A very content Josh after feeding)