I am so frustrated, mad, desperate, and annoyed. The days since Tuesday night and the recommencement of the feeing tube have been just awful. Everything has just gone downhill so fast.
The girls are struggling so much with their tubes. We have tried several combinations of amount versus time given for their gavages and we just can't get it right. They keep throwing up. Tonight's (Friday night) plan was to gavage 350mls at 70 mls/hour until finished - about 5 hours. We started at 10pm. I checked on them several times, and when I checked at 1am, they had both already thrown up after only 200mls. They were both also very nasally congested. This is just ridiculous. I stopped their feeds and will give them about an hour then pull their tubes to let them recover.
I've been doing a bit of research on the net. The doctor says Natalie needs 550-600mls of milk a day and Abby, 600-650mls. I found one source specifically for low birth weight infants that makes the following recommendations:
8lbs - 15-18oz or 432-540mls
10lbs - 18-23oz or 540-675mls
12lb - 22-28oz or 654 - 825mls
When you look at the numbers, especially for Natalie, we were getting so close to those totals with our two hour feeding plan. We were approaching 400mls and I feel confident they would have only continued to progress.
Since starting the gavages, the girls have taken less than 200mls each day. Today they took less than 100mls by mouth. They simply won't eat. I will grant that they had shots yesterday and have been running fevers that could affect their appetites. However, they often act hungry, begin to suck on the bottle, then stop and let hte milk run out their mouth. I think their throats are sore.
Personally, I'm ready to go back to our 2 hour schedule. We bought a scale and can weight them and monitor their weight. Maybe we can tube them two days a week to help them maintain. All I know is my children are miserable, we are miserable, and all the progress we were making has just gone right down the drain. Remember when I said I was mad. I think I'm actually furious.
Tomorrow is a new day, and I can't wait to start over and get our babies eating again. I know we can do better than this.
2 comments:
I got three words for you baby, "Mommy knows best". You go girl!
ps. to everyone out there reading this, don't get in the way of a mother and her babies! Johelen ain't playing. HuBENdy is going to step out of the way here... :)
Johelen,
You are a great mom and you are doing a great job w/the girls. You know your babies better than anyone! Christie
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