Home Sweet Home

Austin has been home for 13 days now. The first couple days we got him home were interesting. He must have been trying to transition from being at the NICU to being at home because he was quite fussy. Actually, that is an understatement. He was uncontrolably fussy and we couldn't do anything to soothe him. We tried every trick that we had been told, read about or made up and nothing seemed to help. He would just scream at the top of his lungs for hours at a time. Talk about feeling absolutely helpless - not knowing why he was crying and not being able to soothe him. Needless to say, the first couple days were pretty stressful for all.

During the first week, we did a lot of reading to find out what we could do to soothe the little guy. One of the articles we read about talked about gripe water. We asked our pediatrition and he said that has no side affects and can be given per the directions on the label. This stuff actually seems to work pretty well. It's an herbal remedy which takes affect in 5-20 minutes. We now add this to his feedings twice a day. Once the bottle is done (it last two weeks), we are going to see what he's like without it.


He's doing well with his feedings. It took us about a week, but we got him back to 100% breast milk. He's been doing really good on it too, and has many more bowel movements. The Enfamel AR that they had him on is known for causing constipation. He seems to be much happier on the breast milk and has a movement many times a day now, instead of going 2 or 3 days without one. He weighed 9 pounds yesterday.


We started tummy time with Austin about a week ago. He likes tummy time, especially rolling over. It only took him a couple tries once we taught him to get the roll down on his own. He can usually get 3-4 rolls in before he gets tuckered out.


For those of you who have been around Baxter, he likes to bark, sleep and play. He has a squeeky bone that he loves to play with. Whenever we get on the floor for tummy time, Baxter runs to get his bone. The funny thing is, he drops the bone by Austin's hand and barks at him, then waits patiently for him to throw it. Every once in awhile when Austin is moving his hands, he gets close to the squeeky bone and Baxter gets ready to run to retrieve the bone. When Austin doesn't throw it, Baxter starts to bark at Austin. This lasts only a few minutes until Baxter gives up then brings the bone to us, but it's still hilarious.


This is a pic of the RES-Q wedge (taken from the website) that Austin sleeps on at night. They prescribed it because of his reflux. Which is odd since the tests showed that he had no reflux. He used to spit up and throw up a lot at the NICU, but has not done so since he's been at home. We don't know if this is a result of the change in prilosec doseage or if it's related to something else. He likes sleeping on the wedge but we are not sure it's really necessary.


Here are a couple of pics of one of Austin's favorite sleeping positions when he's on his back.


Great Grandma and Grandpa Graves.


Grandpa Jesse and cousin Codi chillin with Austin on the couch.


On the day he was born, Grandma Netz and Grandpa Jesse sent some balloons to the delivery room. A couple months into it, the balloons were still flying high. We made a joke that the balloons were going to wait until Austin came home before they dropped. Sure enough, 90 days later they were still floating. A couple days after he was home, they started to drop one by one.


It's been quite a transition and a big change for all of us, but we are happy to all be at home together.