Preemies…

So having a preemie baby is much more exciting then I would have ever thought. Ayden is quite a handful and heres why…

A normal baby “full term”, will have growth spurts throughout their development and then they will plateau for a bit and then grow again. Ayden on the other hand will have a continuous growth spurt over the first year of his life…what this means…he’s constantly growing (which is great news). The hard part is, he is always hungry even though you have fed him, he is constantly fussy and he cries a lot.  Makes for some fun days for mom and dad!!!

Ayden also has a premature system. His nervous, tummy and bowels are all still developing as well. When Ayden cries, it’s not always for food or that he has gas pains or that he is tired, sometimes the shreaking is due to his premature system. You feel for the little guy…he does not know whats wrong, only that something is not feeling right and his only way to vocalize this is to cry and scream so loud you feel like your ears are going to burst. how you handle this…you hold him, snuggle him tightly against you and talk to him in a nice soft quiet voice. Through the screams, at least he knows that he is safe. this is one of the hardest times as a parent of a preemie. There is nothing you can do to make him feel better, all you can do is hold him (and that even is a struggle at times).

Preemies like Ayden also don’t feed like a normal baby. Because his system is premature he cannot coordinate his suck and swallow of the milk. As such, I have to feed Ayden while I sit him upright. For a normal full term baby, you can feed them cradled in your arms, but not with Ayden. He will actually choke on his milk if you lean him back. I also have to do what is called “Pacing” with the bottle. I let him take a little bit of milk, then I pull the bottle away to ensure that he is swallowing, then I put the milk back and then take it away….it makes the feeding go a bit slower, but this ensures that he does not take too much and starts to choke.

Aside from all of his preemie issues (which we are learning to deal with), I love him to bits.

So because Ayden is now eating a bit more we are starting to run low on my breast milk. We have started putting a bit of formula into his milk to get his system adjusted. One of the problems we have noticed….diarrhea!!!  poor little guy…but the doc mentioned that this might happen with the switch…and also cause he has a premature tummy and bowels we have to move slowly into the formula. We are using Similac Advanced formula right now….fun fun fun.

To top all of the meds that Ayden is already on, lets add another one to the mix….Ayden now has Thrush. This is a mouth yeast infection…the doctors think its due to the long term antibiotics and the switch to formula as well….so today I have to start him on an oral medication….poor little guy….

well, he is starting to wake up…he does not usually sleep during the day but I think cause he’s not feeling 100% right now, hes just wiped…but I should go and tend to him…I like to get to him before the crying starts so he knows I am there and he knows he is safe…

Until next time…