If it wasn’t obvious enough to us before, it’s official: we have a night owl on our hands.

Throughout Olivia’s first month or so, we realized her “witching hours” coincided nicely with the nurses’ shift change, between 6-9PM. She’d regularly be fussy and hard to settle, and require a lot of attention during these hours, only to then be wide awake throughout the late evening hours. But last night was impressive. Olivia pulled her first all nighter! Most people don’t experience their first all nighter until you know, maybe a middle school sleep over, or finals week in college. But Olivia walks to her own beat (or whatever that expression is) and decided 1.5 months old was the right time to test the waters. Her night nurse reported that she was wide awake and playful from 8PM – 6AM! Playful in Olivia terms usually means content, wide eyed, looking around, and wiggling her fingers like crazy, as if she’s either concocting something mischievous or rehearsing a complex Yanni piece.

Olivia woke up this morning for her 8AM change and chest PT session, and to say hi to Dad, but it’s no surprise that she is now sound asleep.

Medical updates:

• Nutrition – gaining weight and building muscle is a huge goal for Olivia right now. Her latest weight was slightly down from her previous weight, and while she did gain week over week this week, it’s not as much as her team would like to see. We’re increasing her “protein powder” to 3 teaspoons today.
• Respiratory – we are continuing to decrease her ventilator settings with her pre-extubation settings as the goal. These are what we now consider her “baseline” settings, as we know she can tolerate them quite well. Overnight she was weaned to 18/6 for pressure, 25 for rate, and 21 for O2, and after rounds this morning we’re decreasing her rate further to 15. The team also decided to discontinue her regular blood gases. Instead, we’ll relay on the end tidal machine to monitor her CO2 levels, and wean her ventilator settings based on those readings. The end tidal is less invasive, and means less pricks and labs for Olivia.

Dad is spending a few hours in the office today, so Mom’s on duty at the hospital for now, and Grandpa Prior and Nana arrive this afternoon for a visit!