Evening update (Monday 1/26)

Max greeted Carolyn this morning by throwing up a large portion of his morning feed. (Carolyn as usual blames Max's morning vitamin dose.) Max held down the rest of his feeds today, although Carolyn reports that he sometimes got a strange, inward-looking expression on his face as if though he were considering vomiting, but he never again did. So it was a close-run thing in a couple of cases. He was bright-eyed and alert for most of the day. His breathing continues to be good, with few or no desats.

Yesterday, Carolyn was worried because he seemed to be slacking off on his pacifier use, a potential sign of diminished oral competence which will cause trouble down the road when he learns to eat by mouth and, of course, when he tries to talk. Today, she got him to take his pacifier after several rejections. Max, like many babies, has trouble keeping his pacifier in even when he wants to suck on it. Carolyn propped Max up against his stuffed elephant in an arrangement where the elephant's trunk held the pacifier in.

Tonight's nurse, J., is our kind of person. She is working with Max on his pacifier (when he's awake). She noticed that he was up and fussy earlier this evening and decided to give him a bath and massage. This quieted him down. Nurse J. believes that the day is a time for fun and stimulation, but that the night is a time for sleeping.

Max crossed another threshold tonight: his weight, at 4,085 grams, is now just a hair over 9 lbs.

I'm pasting in a picture of the helpful elephant below. Note that it was hand-knit --- an accomplishment in differential geometry.