Oh Happy Day

Paxton had a great day today. He only had one minor gagging episode before his first feeding of the day, but nothing after that. He laughed a lot and seemed very happy. He even mimicked Susanne when she would laugh. She would start then he would follow up with a deep belly laugh. They carried on like this multiple times throughout the day. Susanne was able to work with Paxton on oral feedings later in the afternoon. He took about eight spoonfuls of a mixture of apples, pears, and sweet potatoes. He didn't gag, but he had some difficulty swallowing towards the end. For the first time, he was actually smiling during the feeding session. He really seemed to respond well to Susanne's positive reinforcement. Her cheerleading skills impressed him more than they ever had in the past. Susanne worked on trying to get Paxton to support himself more in the sitting position. Also, she tried to encourage him to lift his head and hold it longer during tummy time. Paxton was even receptive to the pacifier being placed on his lips. His little tongue would come out and explore the foreign object. He resisted it being placed in his mouth all the way, but that was understandable. Anything that made him feel like he was losing control, caused him to panic and made the difficulties with swallowing a lot more challenging. All in all, he did a great job today. It was only when she went to put him down for the night that he started to rebel. He didn't cry, but he was restless and wouldn't fall asleep. This was very unlike him. She ended up holding him for a little while until he finally released all of the gas that must have been building up the entire day. It was so loud that it startled him. It was quite the sight to see.

Paxton had been doing well with handling the mixture of fortified breast milk and formula that was calculated out to be 30kcal/oz. Susanne was pleased that he was managing the change. As she was preparing one of his afternoon feedings, she was reminded how quickly she was running out of milk. She only had one more full bag of about ten containers full of breast milk. After that was gone, she would have to rely on whatever she pumped daily which was not a lot. This made her sad that she may not make it to Paxton's first birthday. What a bummer.