NPA too short? End of Feb 2022

We started to notice that Rosie is gradually rejecting her bottle which is upsetting as she was enjoying it a lot and we had hoping to gradually increase the amount she would take from it and have less going down via the NG. It seemed that she would get upset and reject it when it came to the first or second swallow so we thought it may be the NPA becoming too short and causing irritation/discomfort when she goes to swallow the milk. 

On advice from a cleft nurse at Broomfield who specializes in NPAs, we took out her NPA for the day and offered her a bottle at her feeds. She took to it straight away and would have 20ml (the usual volume she had got up to previously) very easily. This confirmed that the NPA must be the cause of her rejecting the bottle and it may be due to it being too small. So the cleft nurse was happy for us to insert an NPA at 7.5cm. 

Of course we had to take advantage and have a mini photo shoot where we got to see more of her beautiful face:

Since the increase in length of NPA she has seemed to be a lot more happy and smiling. Which has been lovely to see. She has been very reluctant to take her bottle again however which is upsetting. She will take it for a few sips which is more than what she was doing when it was 7cm but no where near as much or as easy as she did without her NPA. 

We are now waiting to hear if we will have her follow up sleep study brought forward so they can check the position and length of the NPA/test if she even still needs it. While it would be so so lovely for her to not have her NPA anymore I am holding my hope back as I do realize it is early days. But it does seem that the NPA will be a barrier to getting her to increased her orally feeds so as soon as it can come out (and she is safe) the better!