Nipple Nipple Niiiiiiiiiiiiipple!

I've always given my children bottles. Bode never did nurse--he was 5 weeks early and had no suck reflex. As far as problems go/in the whole scheme of things, initially this one was OK with us (in the end i was really sad about it but i've gotten over it). We taught him to suck by giving syringe feedings. We worked with a lactation consultant. I hoped he'd eventually nurse. He never did. I stopped pumping after 4 months. I know now that i was nuts. Nuts. Pumping sucks (HA!). How i did it as often as i did for 4 months is beyond me (insanity). Keegen was a great nurser but also had a bottle from about Day 2 of life. Like, a bottle a day so that during those days when they're eating every 1-2 hours, i could catch a break here and there. He decided he was done nursing around 9 or 10 months.

I've done the same thing with Soren. She got a bottle the night she was born. She had (and still has) such a need to suck that a bottle came in handy. After getting a bottle a day during those early days, she maybe got a bottle a week so i could go somewhere exciting without her (like, oh, Costco). Then when she started solids she only nursed about four times a day so i didn't feel the need for a break because four times a day is easy-peasy. I evidently haven't gone anywhere without her. I forgot to give her a bottle now and again. And now? NOW?! My 7-month old has no idea what she's supposed to do with a bottle. And it is a problem. Because as much as i love her, i occasionally need or want to go somewhere without her.

I went on a field trip last week with Bode. It was up in Denver. Doug agreed to work from home so i could go and take Keegen, too, but leave the babe. I nursed Soren at 8AM and didn't return until 4PM. I pumped a bottle in hopes that she would drink it since it was breastmilk and not formula. I came home to a baby who was happier--with a tinge of desperation--than usual to see me. And a husband, too, for that matter. The child drank, MAYBE, 3 ounces the entire time i was gone. Three ounces in eight hours does not sustain my fatty-licious 20-pounder. Doug is always good-natured, but dealing with a non-drinking, cranky baby who wouldn't nap because "where-the-hell-is-that-lady's-boobs?!" was not how his day was supposed to go.

This is what i get. This is what i get because why, you ask? Maybe a month ago in the mothers' lounge at church another mom was talking about how hard it has been to get her 9 month old to take a bottle and asked if i had any suggestions. I didn't. I'd never had that problem. And i remember feeling almost self-righteous, like, "I always introduce a bottle to my baby so i've never had that problem." Ha! So much for that!

**POST-EDIT**

I realized totally out-of-the-blue that i've been using the same bottle nipple since she was born. Meaning to the uninitiated, that the flow of the nipple is TOO SLOW. Can i have a "Duuuuuuuh!"

I know. Amateur!

Have i gotten new, faster nipples yet? No. But i have shoved both a toothpick and a fork tine through the hole in an effort to enlarge it. Seems to have helped. Call me frugal (um. Or just too busy/lazy/frazzled to have made a trip to Target just yet).