Bottle Disaster

I have 5 short weeks until school begins. This means that baby needs to be bottle ready and prepared to leave my sight for hours at a time. As much as I hate the idea of leaving my kids, I'm somewhat excited to get out of the house and do something just for myself...even if that means cramming my poor mommy brain with lots of useful medical info!

We decided to give Levin his first bottle this weekend, and it did not go as planned. I've heard many people say that it can take a while and that you may have to try multiple different brands, but I somewhat thought this would be a nice easy transition. Apparently I was dead wrong!

Levi tried for some time and baby was getting beyond frustrated. He would never suck on the bottle nipple. Instead, he would bite on it and push it out of his mouth with his tongue. After a while I tried too. I know it's usually best if someone other than mom is associated with the bottle, but I could tell Levi was getting nowhere.

Still, he hated it. He got so worked up that we took a good break. After he was happy and smiley once again I brought it back. Still no luck. At this point he was even pushing it away with his hands. We took another break and as soon as I even brought the bottle near him again, he screamed! He knew exactly what I was trying to do and wanted no part of it.

I gave up and decided to just boob him (which he did in about one second flat). We did this entire dance all over again at the next feeding and I finally gave up.

My first attempt at bottle buying was completely unsuccessful. I stood in the aisle forever and finally got so overwhelmed that I just left. This is an entirely new world for me and I don't like it one bit! I exclusively breastfed Lucas until he was done, and I wish I could continue to do the same with Levin. So I polled all of my family and friends to find out which bottles worked best for them, and the Playtex drop-in inserts seemed to have won the vote. I went out and bought one, but it came with a slow flow nipple. I'm going to take a guess that the nipple needs to be upgraded to medium or fast because my own are definitely not on the slow side. I honestly feel like I'm choking the poor kid half the time.

So my fingers are crossed that a different nipple does the trick. If not, an entirely different bottle brand may be in order. This entire situation was awkward, frustrating, and disappointing. I hate having to push for something that neither of us seem to want, but I'm pretty optionless at this point. I have a client due any time and I need him a little more cooperative so that I can leave him with dad. (Although they offered to allow me to bring him along too, but I'm not sure that I want to take him to a hospital birth). If only I could bring him to school with me too...life would be much easier!