Adjusting to the NAM

Adjusting to the NAM device has been a little challenging. More for us than for Jake! Feeding seems to be much easier at night when he's half asleep. The rest of the time, he fusses and cries and whips his head around before settling down to eat. Sometimes it takes almost 5 minutes of drama before he'll calm down. I've been keeping him swaddled until after he eats, that helps quite a bit. The nice thing is that it seems easier for him to breathe while he's eating. The NAM essentially creates a second nostril for him. Before, the whole cleft would fill with milk. If he was a little stuffy or even just not paying attention, he would drink until he choked. We had to pay real close attention while feeding him to make sure we pulled the bottle away if that was starting to happen. Now, once he settles down to drink, it's usually smooth sailing. It seems like using his tongue and jaw in a different way tires him out a bit. Jake usually wants to go to sleep after a feeding. Before, that used to be playtime!

The tapes have been giving us a lot of trouble. Getting them on isn't as hard as I thought it would be. Getting them to stay is another matter. His skin reacts to the Transpore tape so we use dots (I don't know what their official name is.) But the Transpore keeps slipping around. I've tried taping it to the dot's top patch of adhesive, to the plastic that covers the dot's adhesive, to the adhesive and then putting the plastic back on over the whole thing. Nothing seems to hold for long. They don't always fall off, but it creates enough slack that the rubber bands just slip right off the NAM's posts. Even when the tapes are holding, the rubber bands will fall off if Jake presses his cheek against anything. He is so used to burrowing his face in my shoulder that it's hard to give him comfort without dislodging the NAM. Grr. In two weeks, we are supposed to begin taping the two halves of his lip together. Since he reacts to the tape and it doesn't hold anyway, I'm a little worried about how that's going to work.


This picture shows him in his boppy and swaddled right after getting his new tapes put on. The velcro swaddle bags I made have been an absolute lifesaver. More on that later ;)

Aside from being a little extra fussy and sleeping a little more than usual, Jake's having a grand ol' time. I'm a little frazzled though, but it could be much worse.