Day 27 - Cup feeding
MILLIE had her first proper "cup feed" today.A cup feed is a half-way house between breast feeding and bottle feeding.
As Millie grows, she gets hungrier more frequently (quite obviously!).
She cries for food and it would be cruel to make her wait until her next allotted feed.
So the nurses top her up as required in addition to giving her 34ml of milk every 3 1/2 hours.
Rather than feed her through the tube (which she needs to be weaned off before she comes home), the options are for her to be bottle fed with mummy's milk or breast fed directly.
We don't want to bottle feed her even with mummy's milk, because once she starts bottle feeding it will be difficult to get her back on to the breast.
This is because the sucking action a baby needs for a bottle is different to a breast and a bottle will make her 'lazy'.But mummy can't stay at the baby unit through the night, so the alternative is for the nurses to cup feed Millie.
She is given a small cup of mummy's milk which is put up to her lips and she then laps it up - a little bit like a cat.
In fact, daddy suggested that when Millie comes home she can teach Harry how to lap properly because he will only drink out of a glass.
Millie likes cup feeding and can't seem to get enough of it.
She put on 12 grammes today and although her heart murmur is back, she is in fine fettle.
posted by Johann @ 11:16 PM
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