Marika's weight was 6 lbs 9 ounces. Length was 20-1/4 inches. It was written in the comments on one of the pictures of the blog so I'm not surprised you missed it, Marcie. :)

The reasons for the cup feeding are exactly what MarnaLou said. The technique itself is simple - you fill the plastic cup with formula, hold the baby's head near vertical, and place the cup with the edge touching the lower lip and bring the fluid up to contact the upper lip. Once the baby feels the liquid there, they'll start sipping (or in our kid's case, slurping) the formula right out of the cup.

Now a new twist on the situation. We went back and saw lactation yesterday and we demonstrated the cup feedings to our consultant and she was pleased at her success. Marika's weight has rebounded to her birth weight plus some (normal newborn will lose up to 10% of their birth weights after delivery and will usually regain it by 2 wks after with feedings) so it's a little unusual to have regained by the 3-4th day of life! She is slightly jaundiced in the pictures you have seen so far but that has been improving as well.

We were still having problems with the latch so our consultant brought out another trick to play with. It's called a SNS (supplemental nursing system) and it's essentially a bottle that's been inverted and clipped to the collar of your clothes with a small flexible tube coming out of it. The end of the tube is taped into place at the level of the breast nipple. The idea here is that you fill the bottle with formula and as the baby sucks on the nipple, the tube feeds formula to the kid and encourages the kid to continue sucking (latching). Well, we tried it yesterday with the consultant and we were amazed. Before, Marika would latch at best about 30 seconds before pushing back and crying. Now, with the SNS, she latched on for 30 MINUTES and continued to suck and we managed to empty the entire bottle.

So, now we don't have to pump any more to stimulate milk production because Marika will act as the human pump for us. We're still waiting for milk letdown to take place (should be another day or two). Then we should be able to stop using the SNS as well and be strictly on breast feeds.

The bad news now? Now that Marika's gotten a feel for latching and how comforting it is for her to be sucking, she won't do the cup feeds any more. :) She wants that nipple! As long as she continues to feed with the SNS, that's OK.

Masaki