Quick Update

We had a wonderful weekend filled family and friends; I love weekends where we get to see the ones we love, but it makes me a bad blogger! We went to my parents on Sunday and when we got home, there were so many bottles to wash, babies to feed, laundry to fold, dinner to cook that I didn't sent down to update the blog.  I'll have all the pictures from our Mother's Day weekend adventures tonight, but I wanted to give a quick update today.

Tony and I wanted to thank everyone who has been praying for Miss Harper and her feeding issues. We have seen a turn around in our little girl this weekend. She had been pushed to the point in her eating that she would scream and cry when being fed, gag, refuse the bottle, and throw up at least once a day (sometimes more). Here are the things we've changed in her feeding:

-increase in thickness (from 3 1/3 tsp of rice to 5 1/2 tsp of rice)
-swaddle hands (to help her organize herself)
-feed when she cues to eat (instead of every 3 hours during the day like brother)
-stop feeding when she seems upset or finished even if she has taken very little

I know some of these things sound like common sense like "feed the baby when she's hungry", but all the doctors in the NICU had her on a feeding schedule to get in the calories she needed and Jack eats every 3 hours like clock work. It seemed like letting her go longer during the day would be more harmful (because she would get offered one less bottle than Jack, thus less calorie intake), but she seems to be much happier when she controls when she eats and she actually put herself back on a 3 hour schedule yesterday. We have also been throw up free for 3 days! I know that this does not seem like much, but in our house it's huge. It's amazing how much happier she is when she isn't choking and gaging during dinner and we know now that she's actually getting every drop of forumla she takes.

Harper has also started to smile while she eats and she's making eye contact- a very big deal for us because she had a far away stare for so long when she was fed. We hope that these changes will be what it takes to get our girl back on track with her weight and keep her full and happy :)