One Week Old....Notice Anything Different?

NO MORE CONTROLLED TEMPERATURE ON THE INCUBATOR!! When we walked in the room today I noticed Carter had an extra blanket on. Mike said "look at that" - pointing to the temperature monitor on the front of the incubator...it was off. That's right...Carter is now maintaining his own body temperature. With the help of an extra blanket, he was actually a bit warm today without added heat. They still won't move him to an open crib for a few days, but several doors on the incubator are left open. We can also technically hold him anytime we want, but we still want to be careful because the more we keep him awake, the more energy he is using and he needs all of his energy to gain weight.

We were also told that he is the next baby on the list to move to the step-down special care unit. Basically it's still special care, with the same group of nurses, etc. but instead of small rooms with only a few babies in each room - it is one large room. However, they currently have some extra space in the small rooms, so unless a bunch of new babies come in, he may not move.

Finally - Carter is also starting 2 bottle/breast feedings a day and is up to 34ml of 24 calorie formula...they're trying to fatten him up! The nurse gave him a bottle at one of his morning feedings, but it took him 10 min. to eat 10ml (so he probably used more calories than he gained) - so the rest was given to him via feeding tube. At 9:30pm I got to breastfeed for the very first time. He did ok for such a little guy, but let's just say...he's lazy! haha. Again, he had to finish with the feeding tube. Tomorrow at 12:30 we meet with the lactation specialist to help out a bit. I keep whispering to Carter that this is really all he needs in order to go home...so eat up!