Micro Preemie(sort of long)

My Son was born 9/28/12 at 26 weeks 5 days gestation. He weighed 1 pound 11 ounces and was 11 1/4 inches long. He spent 8 days on a ventilator, followed by 48 days on a Hudson CPAP and just switched onto a High Flow Nasal Cannula today!   He is now 8 weeks old, adjusted to 35 weeks this coming Sunday. He is up to 3 pounds 9 ounces and is just barely below 14 inches long. If everything continues to go as well as it has been, he is scheduled to come home just in time for Christmas. I'm really nervous about when he comes home because he is just so very small. He is my first and will be my last child and I don't have much for experience with babies.

I'm very interactive in his NICU cares and ask all the questions, so I'm very familiar with everything going on with him while he is there. I'm wondering about when he comes home....

What should I expect? Are there any special things that I should buy for him? Are there questions that I'm not thinking to ask about when he comes home? I'm not entirely sure what I need to know, other then what the NICU nurses tell me. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance!

The best advice I can give it to take a HUGE breathe and try to relax. I was so nervous when I brought by baby home at 35 weeks (she was born at 33).
After you bring LO home he should be pretty "normal" but if there are extra things you need to do the doctors will tell you.
You will probably have a lot of doc apts, and a lot of questions. But that's all normal even for normal newborns and first time moms  

Good luck hun.

Oh and you should post some pics of that beautiful little man  

I have no advice.
But congrats and good luck!!
I love hearing stories of strong babies pullin through. You must be a strong mama!! I don't think I could do it.

I had to buy a special carseat because my son was under 5 pounds when he came home 4' 11 I believe. I wish you the best.

Quoting Uncle Obama's Banana:" The best advice I can give it to take a HUGE breathe and try to relax. I was so nervous when I brought ... [snip!] ... normal newborns and first time moms   Good luck hun. Oh and you should post some pics of that beautiful little man  "

How do I add pictures? I keep trying to link my photobucket and it won't let me?!
The link is to long to fit and it's apparently not .jpg format?

Just kidding! I think I figured it out!

Quoting Uncle Obama's Banana:" Oh and you should post some pics of that beautiful little man  "

Here he is! Timothy Ryan Brown 7 weeks old!
*I'm adding some to my profile album also!

He's so handsome!

Timmy's first big boy bath! 5 weeks old!

he's a sweetheart handsome guy!

i was kind of in a similar position, in that my premie girl twins were my first babies, so I was totally unprepared.
once he's home, unless there are special things you need to do for his care (which the drs would tell you), I think it's the same as full term babies.
some things i found to be super useful was a) a wipey warmer and b) a diaper genie
the wipe warmer i keep right on the changing table. seems like easy enough to make their lives much more pleasant!
and the diaper genie I use the arm and hammer one. makes *my* life easier.

as far as preemie care.... i can't tell you how incredibly grateful I am for Neosure.
it's been amazing for us.
it worked so incredibly well that we probably ended up staying on it a little too long, but hey. it's liquid gold i tell you. liquid gold!

best of luck  

Congratulations on your little boy, he is beautiful! I hope you get to have your boy home for Christmas, it just makes it that much more special :-)

My boy wasn't a micro premmie, but something I found very helpful was having an angelcare baby monitor (one with a sensor pad to monitor his breathing). It gave me soo much peace of mind, otherwise I would've been checking his breathing constantly

Quoting Mandi Bass:" Here he is! Timothy Ryan Brown 7 weeks old! *I'm adding some to my profile album also! "

He's beautiful mamma  

My son was a micro preemie. he was born at 25w4d but was bigger than your LO. He was 1lb13.5oz and 13.5in long.

Feeding was a challenge when we brought lil man home. It would take him FOREVER 30-45min just to eat an ounce or two. We had to use alot of different therapuetic holds that the nurses had shown us in NICU to give his jaw the support it needed to feed properly.

Another thing was it is alot quieter in our house than it is in the NICU and lil man's pod was right next to the charge desk so there was always alot of commotion. After 80days in the NICU he had become accustomed to all the actvitiy and noise so when we brought him home he had a hard time adjusting to to the quieter environment. He wouldn't sleep in his crib or his co sleeper. We could only get his to sleep if we put him in his mama roo swing with the white noise sound option. He grew out of that around 3mo adjusted age.

I never bought one but if he doesn't come home on any monitors you might look into the angelcare baby monitor, it will sound an alarm if baby has an apnea episode. Our lil man didn't come home on any equipment and never experienced apnea in the NICU so we didn't feel it necessary to buy one.

As far as preemie nutrition. BFing is obviously best for baby from the very beginning--i had a difficult time and my supply was really low no matter what i did to try and increase it so we ended up formula feeding after he came home from the hospital (plus nipple confusion it was a nightmare for me and him). We use the Enfamil brand for preemies, it is called Enfacare--same stuff they were supplementing my breatmilk with in the NICU. It has helped him go from 5lb9oz when he came home on April 9,2012 to 18lb4oz as of this past week. He is now off of the preemie growth curve and on fullterm baby curve in the 10th percentile.

and love love love!! he is beautiful by the way