When babies are full term (38 weeks), their ability to suck, swallow, and breathe are developed and ready to go. But Kavi is at 33 weeks, so he's still working on this coordination. Suck, Swallow, and Breathe. Actually, he has the coordination and technique down, but he doesn't have the endurance yet. He keeps falling asleep! But everyone's impressed that he's got the technique down already. This really starts developing in the 34th week, but he developed it faster. He's been rooting and sucking for at least a week and a half, so we knew he'd get this down....now he just needs to develop endurance. Do some jumping jacks, run a few miles, jump rope for 3 minutes...well, I'll work with him on that endurance in due time. This endurance he has to do on his own!
He gets bottle fed once a day just to get the process started. What he doesn't finish during the bottle-feed session gets into him via the feeding tube.
Oh, and I must mention this: bottle feeding is not only a lot of coordination for Kavi, but it is also a lot for Mommy and Daddy! Wow! There's so much to know, as far as when to tilt the bottle, how to keep him awake, checking his breathing, signs for burping...we're all learning together!
Here are pictures of the bottle feeding education session today:
3 comments:
You'll be bottle feeding Kavi, drinking a soda, eating chips, answering the phone, and pausing the dvd player to post a blog all at the same time before you know it!!! Eventually he holds the bottle for himself, too. : )
Yay Kavi! Moving right along. We're proud of you.
Awesome! I would 'make fun' of grace by saying: "Whoa! Hitting the sauce a little hard tonight!" when she got into the bottle action.
Keep it up!
Scott
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