Although Jacob and Lilian weren't due to be born until next month, we are nearly upon their expected arrival date (anytime from Wednesday onwards as twins rarely go full term) but, instead of preparing to go and have our babies any-day now, we have been enjoying their company already and have seen them change rapidly over the last 11 weeks (on Tuesday!).
Both have made great improvements with their breathing. Jacob is now spending 10 hours off CPAP and 2 hours on twice-daily, and Lilian is spending 8 hours off and 4 hours on. Some of the Nurses feel it's pointless putting Jacob back on for such a short period of time as it disturbs him quite a lot - plus he is fighting it now! But, the Doctors feel that he still needs to have a little rest between stints so that we don't push him too far and risk setting him back.
Jacob has been fantastic over the last couple of days, and has learnt how to take a bottle! Last night he took 25mls with Daddy! He should now be ready to move on to standard teats, which will help him to take in more milk (and probably drain the bottle!), at first, the babies use premature teats as the milk flows much slower so it teaches them to suck and then swallow, but the downside to this is that they don't get much milk before they are too tired.
Lilian has also been fantastic and has already moved on to standard teats for feeding. She's working so hard with her breathing though that she wasn't awake enough to have a bottle yesterday. This isn't something to be concerned about though, particularly as we know she has learnt to co-ordinate her sucking/breathing/swallowing to successfully feed from a bottle.
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