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1 ounce
That's how much he took from his bottle this morning.
Going up to the faster-flow nipple helped for about 2 weeks, and now he's back to fighting bottles full force.
I'm seriously going to cry, y'all. I'm all for being a working mom until I feel like it's hurting my kid's health.
Dear Bump: You suck.
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Re: 1 ounce
B&W Photo by Wildhouse Photography
Is he fighting bottles only while at school?
I'm sure you know this, but I'll say it anyway: look at the whole day. Not just what he eats at school. Is he eating baby food at school? Nursing well at home? In a 24 hour period, what does his intake look like?
We have one little girl who will only take bottles from me. She nurses at home with mommy, and I have been with her since she started school at 8 weeks old, except for the one day a week I am off. I am the ONLY person she has ever taken a bottle from, so on Mondays, she has next to 0 breastmilk intake. It used to totally freak her mom out, but she makes up for it at table meal times and by nursing more that night. So now she tries to not stress. Is it similar for Sam where he makes up for it in other ways.. or is he just straight up not eating anything at all at school?
(hugs)
The O'Baby Blog
He's doing better with solids, so that makes me feel a teensy bit better, but not much b/c he's supposed to be getting all nutrition from BM still.
I can't go at lunch and nurse him b/c he's not eating then. He nurses at 7 a.m. right before I leave for work. He gets solids at 8:15ish when he gets to school, and then he's napping from 9:30-11. 11 is when he gets his morning bottle. Even if they tried to give it to him earlier, he's not hungry earlier. Even when he was eating zero solids, he wasn't hungry earlier. And I don't feel like I can stretch him to five hours between feedings by making him wait until I can go at noon. So unless I can get away at 11 to nurse him, he has to take the bottle. And until further notice, I have a standing meeting at 11 (of course).
He's been with the same teacher since he started. He fights all teachers equally.
He nurses fine in the morning, but it varies depending on when he nursed overnight. For example, last night he woke at 4:30 to nurse, so he wasn't really interested in nursing again at 7. (And that means he went from 4:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. with only one meh nursing between. And only took an ounce at 11.) When he wakes earlier in the night (2:30-3ish) he nurses better at 7. He's eating solids when we get home and then nursing once before bedtime. And he's only waking up once at night (and for a while he wasn't even doing that).
So let's say he takes a combined ... 8 ounces between overnight and morning? He gets another 2 with his oatmeal for breakfast. Then I'll say maybe 5-6 before bed. So that's 16(ish) accounted for. I send two 6-ounce bottles with him, and of that 12 ounces, he usually takes about 7 or 8 total. (tear*) So even though it seems like he's getting enough by the ounce-count, he's still falling drastically in percentiles of weight.
I would really, really hate to give up one of our few nursing sessions while we're together to sub in a bottle. He would then be getting more bottles than boob, and that's not a tip in the balance of things that I want to see.
Have you thought about night weaning so he eats more during the day?
I know you ideally want him nursing more than bottles, but honestly, it didn't matter at all to me how he got breastmilk, just that he got it and he was gaining the appropriate amount of weight. If all bottles means healthier baby? That's what I would do. I know, pumping sucks. Maybe give more bottles over the weekend until he starts putting on more weight? And then maybe go back to just nursing at home? I didn't mind exclusively pumping for the few months I did it, but only because I was a basket case not knowing exactly how much breastmilk he was getting. Will he even take a bottle from you? Maybe if he saw that bottles came from you too, he would be more willing to give them a chance...
I dunno what else to tell you. Do you even know if he'll take a bottle from you?
But, if he is offered a bottle at 11 and he refuses it, then you really aren't making him wait until you can get there at lunch time, right? I would consider calling when you get out of your meeting to see if he accepted the 11:00 bottle. If not, high tail it over there and offer him the boob. If so, pump.
No, I've never tried to give him a bottle. And I haven't thought about night weaning at all until he stops dropping in %. In fact, I've even asked the pedi if we should start waking him at night to eat (she said no). The only time it affects his daytime intake is if he woke up relatively late in the night (4 a.m. or later), and I figure that even a good eating at 4 a.m. and a "meh" eating at 7 a.m. is better than one good eating at 7 a.m., you know?
We also haven't tried a ton of different types of bottles b/c I though that upping the nipple flow had worked. Guess we need to do that now?
What kinds of bottles work well?
He haaaates drop-ins with a passion. We've been using Vent Aires.
Is he reverse cycling? It didn't sound like it but I thought I'd check. This is what Ryan did since he wouldn't take a bottle. Have they tried anything other than the bottle? Our nanny had luck with a eye dropper, regular child sized cup and cup + spoon. I think we started the straw cup around 8 months too and when he got that (9 months?) he started to drink a lot more BM while I was at work.
Hugs, I'm sorry :-( That's really hard. I remember worrying a lot about Ryan. Our pedi was totally cool with the non-bottle eating until Ryan dropped in percentiles too (around 6 months I think) and he got "concerned". Not enough for weight checks though, but his "concern" stressed me out. Of course it was unneeded stress because Ryan is thriving and at the one year well check he was good (i.e. no more "concern").
The only one ds took without any issues was the born free bottles.
We have Dr. Brown's that you can boil and try out if you'd like. We have about 6 of them and if they work you can keep 'em til you are done.
I almost wish he were! At least then I'd know he's eating enough. Ha. But no, he doesn't seem overly hungry when we're together, and he's perfectly content to nurse once before bed, once overnight, and once in the morning (and for a while there, he'd even dropped his overnight one).
The teachers have tried sippy cups and have gotten him to take about 3 ounces out of those. So that's an improvement. He likes sucking water out of straws, so think we'll probably introduce straw cups soon and see if that works any better.
ooh, I like it. BUT, I pump at 10:30 so that I don't have to wait 'til noon (five hours) to pump. I guess I could split my one morning pump into two? Like, an early one at 9, and then a "maybe" at noon?
I like LL's idea of nursing at noon if he didn't eat at 11... at least for a little while until you figure out the bottle situation.
I've also got some Dr Brown's that you're welcome to try (I think we work really close to each other - I could bring them and we could meet at lunch tomorrow?). DD likes the drop-ins, so that's what we've stuck with. Only used the little dr. brown's the first 2 weeks, until we switched to drop-ins.
Playtex makes a straw sippy that is for 4+ months, and since DD didn't quite get the hang of the sippy cup right away, I saw that and tried it. she's a pro! they're about $4 at CVS, BRU, etc. that might be another option to try immediately.
this. it'll probably be a total pain since you'd probably want to split up your morning pumping like you mentioned but might be worth trying for awhile??
sorry, hope today was a fluke and that it gets better!!
I like LLCG's idea of checking in at 11am and seeing if he's taken the bottle and if not, then going in for a nursing session on your lunch break.
I'm sorry it's so tough right now.
We went through something similar where DS2 would NOT ever take a bottle and his weight was dropping. It was not fun.
I hope that maybe switching bottles or to a straw sippy will work for your sweet, sweet handsome boy.
Yep. It'll be a bit of a PIA, but if he won't eat otherwise... Hang in there and let us know how it goes.