Leaps and Bounds

This morning we arrived at the hospital in time for the 9am feeding. Carter was very eager to eat and did a great job breastfeeding. We decided to only give him 1/2 of his bottle (but by feeding tube). It's hard to figure out how much to give him because we really have no idea how much he got from me. But, it seems like our estimation worked because he slept until his next feeding 3 hours later without getting upset/hungry.

The doctor had come in to visit while Carter was eating, and told us that since he was gaining so much weight and all of his temps except the ONE yesterday were fine - they were going to start weaning him back off the heat/into the crib. He also said to expect 1-1.5 more weeks. They gradually turned down the heat, and finally turned off the heat in his incubator throughout the day. Also, since he was out from the heat, we were able to put one of Carter's new outfits on him. It fit PERFECT. Check out the little frog feet!

Mike's mom came to visit Carter because she took the day off for her birthday, and she gave us the travel system so we can bring Carter home when he is ready! Sorry, this is the photo from the internet for now - we will have a real pic in the next day or two when we get it put together.

Oh - I forgot to mention yesterday that his umbilical cord fell off! HOORAY!

At 3pm I fed Carter again - and after breastfeeding for 20 minutes, I was able to get him to finish all but 5ml of his food via bottle. We figure he was probably very full, because he was still wide awake and alert - but the nurse gave him the last 5ml via feeding tube. We were all SO impressed, going from not knowing what to do AT ALL yesterday - to getting ALMOST a complete feeding without the feeding tube. We are hoping that tomorrow is more of the same and they will up his feedings from 2 to 3 or 4 in the next day or so.

This evening we worked on the nursery some more. The wall stickers look SO cute. Check back for pics later!