August 26

Will is 8 weeks old today! He had a good day, but I had a little disagreement with his nurse. He keeps getting new nurses, who think they know better than the notes in his chart or what I say. When I called to check this morning I made sure she knows he's supposed to be gavaged at 11 because we nurse at 2 then I do a bottle. I need the experience bottle feeding him, he isn't as easy to feed as a term baby. She decided to ignore that and gave him a bottle, and he was tired so didn't do well at nursing then was very slow with his bottle but took it all. Then she told me she'd given him a bottle at 11 but he only took half and got gavaged the other half. I'm just getting SO TIRED of nurses thinking they can just do whatever they want and ignoring what his chart says to do! So between that and yesterday's nurse continually turning his oxygen up to 40 and leaving it there I talked to the charge nurse again. When I spoke to her last time we agreed we'd get a team of nurses and not be rotated through every nurse in existance but there was no change we still get a new nurse almost every day. Turns out this is because being assigned to patients is voluntary for nurses, and because I don't spend my days sucking up to them and making small talk (sorry, but I don't give a hoot about any of that I'd rather spend what time I have there with my baby!!) only one chose us and she's a night nurse. Sooo... we're going to ask again if any of the nurses will be primary for us, and we're going to make a big bold treatment plan signed by the doctor and the charge nurse to put over his bed and get rid of all the smaller notes and signs people have placed around. Then the nurses have no excuse for not following it unless his safety is involved and I can call them on it if they choose to override it because they felt like it.

I got more info on his discharge - he needs to be nippling all feeds for a couple days and demonstrate that he's still gaining weight during that time. We're going to be organizing a meeting with all his staff - the social worker, doctor, nurse, occupational therapist and all, to talk more about him coming home soon. We're also going to be talking to the doctor and nutritionist in the next couple days, he's been fussy, gassy and hard to put to sleep, had increased poopy diapers and loose stool since they changed his milk by adding more formula to increase the calories. He was getting increased calorie and doing fine, then they increased it higher and he's been having problems but not gaining weight any better. He's doing well today though other than that, nippled all but one of his feeds for day shift compeltely and that one halfway so that's great. He's up to 5 lb 9 oz and his diaper rash is looking a bit better.