Day 9

Well, tonight's post will be short because I am really tired. Josiah is still doing very well. Today wasn't quite as good as yesterday - as far as how much he ate and kept down - but he still had a very good day. He also had gained 2 ounces when we weighed him this morning, which is the first time that he gained weight since being off the tube!

What I have learned through this process is that getting nutrition from a feeding tube is very different than getting it by mouth. The body just processes it differently. Unfortunately there really has not been much research done in this area to determine exactly how feeding tubes effect the digestive process. For some reason it seems that all of the mother's I have talked to have experienced the same thing - when their child was first weaned off of the feeding tube they lost weight even though they were consuming more calories by mouth than they were from the tube. All I know is that Josiah's body has been making some big adjustments over the last couple of days. He has gone from 6 - 7 feeds in one day to 4 feeds. He has also never digested this much food in one setting before. It seems that his digestive tract has not yet caught up with the changes. He has been quite gassy and irritable. He woke up several times last night with gas pains and was inconsolable for a little bit. I did some time pacing the floor with him which finally settled him (it would have been nice to have had Jono's help last night! - I am sure he got better sleep in KC) He seems a little more settled tonight than he did last night, so hopefully I will get some needed sleep.