The Bottle Battle

Our toddler insisted on putting them on her little sister!

When our first baby was three weeks old, I introduced the bottle to her. It contained pumped breast milk, and she devoured it. Thereafter, every evening, I would give my breasts a break while my husband fed her a bottle of pumped milk.

I returned to work part-time when she was four months old, and whichever family member was watching her had no difficulty feeding her in my absence. In fact, she enjoyed bottled milk so much that now, more than 10 months after I weaned her, she insists on a bottle of (thankfully cow's) milk to fall asleep.

Things went a little differently with our second baby. She was so calm, and did not suck my breasts to excess, so I found no reason to hand her over for a daily bottle-feeding session. On the few occasions that someone else tried to bottle feed her while I ran some errands, things did not go that well. However, I was gone briefly, and left only after an extended nursing session, so I was not overly concerned.

By mid April, we decided to clamp down. We would try to bottle-feed her daily as to prepare for my return to part-time work in June. Things did not go very smoothly. We had experimented with four different bottles until we realized that it had little to do with the brand of bottle. Our little one simply wanted a warm breast, not a cold plastic nipple, and she knew if she complained enough, she would get it!

I was beginning to worry that I wouldn't be very productive at work; I imagined my husband bringing our starving baby to my workplace for feeding sessions every three hours! However, after much persistence on our part, we finally had some success this past week. Our baby would only accept bottled milk from her father, and on condition that I was out of the house. Additionally, the milk had to be on the warm side. While she has yet to drink an entire bottle, she came close on two occasions this week. Much to my relief! 

Playing with her sunglasses!