Saturday, March 8, 2014

New Feeding Schedule

We are home and doing well! Audrey has been sleeping more than usual and not eating much, but it's only been 5 days since her surgery so I'm sure she's still recovering. Her activity level is pretty normal though! Crawling around, cruising, and playing like crazy!

Starting today we are switching to day feedings only. This is the schedule the dietician from Gillette suggested: offer food 3 times a day (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and tube feed breastmilk afterwards adjusting the amount as needed depending on how much she ate. 0-25% of 200 calories: 10 oz, 25-50% of 200 calories: 5 oz, 75-100%: 0 oz. Also, tube feed her 7 oz in the early morning and late at night. If she snacks during the day, you can adjust those feedings as needed,

Ryan and I decided that 10 oz at once was a bit much. Plus she's still gaining weight rapidly. We are going to do 1 tbsp of coconut oil plus 5 oz breastmilk (1 tbsp of coconut oil has 120 calories which is about equal to 4 oz of breastmilk). For the late night/early morning feeds we'll probably do around 5 or 6 oz. We'll be monitoring her weight at home with the scale that Fairview Home Infusion (the company renting us the tube feeding supplies) gave us. I really think this is way more than a baby her age needs, so we'll see how she does.



Audrey's daily medications from top to bottom: multivitamin/mineral, periactin (anti-histamine that's used  to increase appetite), prophylactic antibiotic, ditropan (used to prevent bladder spasms), prilosec for reflux, and children's motrin for post-op pain (we alternate with tylenol).

The other exciting news I have to share is that my order of domperidone finally arrived! Domperidone is a drug used for various GI disorders that has a side effect of increasing prolactin which increases milk production. I had been debating for awhile on whether or not to try domperidone, partly because of the cost (about $40 for a 2 week supply), but it's difficult to find enough donor milk and I know there are younger babies out there who need the donor milk more. I tried increasing my supply twice by using various galactagogues (food or supplement that can increase milk supply) but was only able to increase by a few ounces a day. Hopefully the domperidone will work and I won't need to depend on donor milk anymore. Or better yet, she'll start eating more solids!

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