No More CPAP!

Instead of doing 3 hours off and 3 hours on to give Xavier's nose a rest, his doctor decided that he no longer had to use the CPAP at all! He has been machine free for about two days now. Usually babies go from being on a vent, to the CPAP, to a nasal canula, but Xavier has avoided both the vent and canula to breathing 100% unassisted! I am so very, very happy and thankful for that. I knew he could do it because there have been so many occasions when he had removed it on his own and was breathing just fine. I am so thankful for his nurse Raye :-) for pushing his doctor to give him a chance to try it on his own. She believed in him and knew he could do it!
His dr wants me to try breastfeeding him next week. Hmmm. Not sure how that's going to go since his mouth is the size of a dime and my breast is.....much larger than that. This will definitely be interesting.

Break from CPAP

Today when I went to see Xavier, I immediately noticed that he had removed his CPAP. It was resting on top of his nose instead of inside of his nose. He HATES his CPAP. His nurses say that he moves so much that he pushes the little prongs further in his nose than it needs to go. This is one of many occasions that he has removed it somehow. The nurse practitioner decided that since he was doing so well breathing on his own and breathing room air from day one, she would try him off of the CPAP for three hours. So what will happen now is that he will do three hours off the CPAP and three hours on. This will give his nose a rest. The prongs are uncomfortable for him and push his nose flat against his face, piggy style. I held him today kangaroo style and his breathing remained stable the entire time. He didn't desat once, and his oxygen levels stayed 97-100. If he does well on and off the CPAP, they will start to wean him off of it early. His nurses are impressed. They usually don't wean them off until they are closer to 32 weeks. Nearly all the nurses on his floor came to see this little peanut free of his machines so soon.


Today was my first time seeing him free of all the machines. The cpap has kind of molded his nose flatter against his face than is natural, but he's so beautiful, and of course the creases will resolve itself once he's able to give his nose a rest!