Friday, July 22, 2011

Mom, I only have eyes for you (and by you, I mean your boobs)

Ollie is 12 weeks now, decked out in a
shirt crafted by our friend Kate Coventry.
Well, we have encountered a new hurdle in our efforts to feed baby Ollie - he's started to refuse a bottle.  In the first weeks of life, we got the okay to start bottle feeding Ollie to give my breasts a break.  I was pumping anyway to get my supply up.  So, a couple of times a day, Ollie would get a bottle.  It was great because Logan and grandmas all got to feed Ollie.  By 8 weeks though, I could handle all the feedings, so we cut way back on bottle feeding.  I know now that this was a mistake.

Because then it happened.  Ollie just said no to the bottle.

After a few tries & rejections, we went to the internet & our lactation consultant to get some help.  The frustrating thing is that the most frequent & stressed suggestion is that Mom needs to absent herself.  Spending my days with Ollie, I feel like I'm best placed to work with him, but I did it.

And it helped.  Ollie took a bottle from my mom.  We thought that we were in business.  And then he rejected it from us (me and Logan).

So, we spent the week working with Ollie.  This stuff is really hard because the last thing in the world anyone wants to do is see their baby cry.  And that bottle could really make him cry.  I would try and give it to him, not pushing it for feeding, but just trying to get him to take it.  There was lots of cooing and cajoling and congratulations every time he would take it.  Logan continued to try and do feedings, but didn't have great success.

We were working hard because Logan's parents were coming to visit and Logan and I had planned a night out for our anniversary.  I was so reluctant to leave Ollie if he wouldn't take a bottle -- I didn't want my little guy to go hungry -- that I cried on the way to meet my husband.  It was purely emotional.  Intellectually, I knew Ollie would be fine, but apparently, my brain doesn't win in every situation.

Needless to say, I was so relieved to get the text that Ollie took a bottle from Logan's mom and was snoozing away.  In fact, he bottle fed a few times during their visit!  Since, he's done a couple of short feedings with his dad.  Not major eating, but it's progress.  Hopefully, in a few weeks, he'll be a bottle feeding pro again.  It's important because we're hoping to start daycare part-time in the next couple of months.  I've been told that tenacity is the name of the game.  Let's hope we can keep it up!



1 comment:

  1. We had same issue--started giving bottle right away to get him used to it and he took it no problem. Started up again before daycare and he refused it completely. We tried a bunch of different kinds of bottles until we found one that he at least seemed comfortable on, but it took probably 3 weeks of daycare before he was eating consistently there from the bottle. It totally sucked--very stressful to leave him and lots of guilt (not to mention the wasted breastmilk in the rejected bottles...). He figured it out eventually, so like most things, it does get easier. Love the karate shirt! cheers, sophia

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