May 31, 2011:: Day 13

Kendal and Lyla were moved to Nursery B! This means that they are in the "feed and grow" section of the NICU. It is for stable babies that only need to gain weight and successfully learn how to feed without the feeding tube. Both girls are still in the isolette. Lyla isn't as stable as Kendal, but they thought Lyla was stable enough to go with her sister. We are excited to be "moving on up". :) 

We also had our first non-nutritive feeding with both girls and they did FANTASTIC! Both girls latched on and even sucked a little bit. The whole goal of these feedings is to let them explore and start getting used to nursing. The occupational therapist was impressed with both girls (especially Lyla since she was on the lower end of the spectrum on her readiness assessment for breastfeeding). I will do non-nutritive feedings twice a day with the girls and they will check in on me and hopefully soon we will start nutritive!

Kendal lost a little bit of weight today, but still close to 4 lbs. When she is consistently over 1800 grams ( 4 lbs) they will move her to an open bed that will eventually have Lyla in it too. Kendal has started to really interact with us. When I was holding her yesterday she kept lifting her head to look at my face and seemed to listen very carefully when I was talking. 

Lyla also lost a little bit of weight, but is still around 3 lbs. 2 oz. (her birth weight). Her oxygen saturation dipped quite low yesterday, but with a little bit of oxygen through her nose for a couple seconds she was fine the rest of the day. Her belly was really full of air yesterday so the nurses are trying to get that out and not increasing her feedings until it is a little less full. Lyla has been having her awake times where she keeps her eyes open, looks around, and moves around.