So we slept last night......I woke up this morning thinking YAY!! no vomiting during the night. This is huge for us as Madilyn is on a continuous pump feed through her tube at night and ever since the virus hit her feeding tolerance is way low. There is lots of throwing up....and lots of laundry. Then I realized that at some point during the night there was a throw-up and both grandpa and I slept right through it......this makes me feel like I failed her but occasionally the exhaustion takes over. We used to feed her every 3 hours during the day and they were 80ml (2.7 ounces) but since she got sick we have resorted to feeding every hour to hour and a half...the feeds are only 30-40 ml now (1-1.35 ounces) and we pray that the majority of them stay down.....she is up to 12lbs 10ounces so it's worth it. I never thought my days would revolve around hourly feedings but they do. They make you realize how precious a minute really is....some days it's a chore to make it to the shower much less actually accomplish anything at all around the house. It makes me more and more thankful that she's such a happy baby. It's hard to have a bad day no matter how exhausted you are when you wake up to her smiles and coo's, when you simply wash her face or change her diaper and she's quick to give kisses and smiles.
Madilyn sleeps in a playpen approximately 12inches away from my side of the bed.....she has a crib in my daughter's room but it's not possible to put her in another room and probably won't be for a very long time. We have a video monitor that we can use but rarely do because now that I am older I realize how quickly something bad can happen........2 seconds too long in reacting to a throw-up and she could drown in it or inhale it into her lungs.....every second counts. We no longer use a bottle either, ever since Madilyn had strep throat at Christmas time she would clamp her mouth shut and if you got the bottle in she would gag..thankfully the speech therapist in Milwaukee told us to get rid of it and focus on getting her to use a cup instead. It took a little bit of the struggles out of our daily routine and for that I am very thankful. Getting her to take liquids by mouth is vital to ever getting rid of the feeding tube/pump.........that is nowhere in our near future and we are ok with that, as long as she's growing that's what matters. She does let you feed her with a spoon and absolutely loves mashed potatoes and mac n cheese.....and she ate her first frosted cheerio on Saturday night which gave me great joy. I started out rubbing it on her lips cause she wouldn't open her mouth for me......once she licked her lips then she was willing to lick the cheerio and the next thing you know she was actually chewing on it. It was so much fun to see her doing that..........it was a HUGE step in the right direction for us. We use the cheerios in her little booster seat to encourage her to sit on her butt (which she hates) and to help with hand/eye coordination........she can pick them up with her fingers and proceeds to smile and throw them all over the floor which my dogs love.....my goal is that within 6 months or so she'll be putting them into her own mouth. Hopefully the glasses will help with that......I hope the glasses make a huge difference with a lot of things.........maybe I hope too much but only time will tell, in the mean time...I hope..:)
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