Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Help! Bottle vs. Breast Wars


No, this isn't another opinionated post about the benefits of breastfeeding vs. bottlefeeding.  (If anyone wants to know, we are good with both.  While we strive to be a breastmilk only household, I have nieces and nephews that were both exclusively bottlefed and exclusively breastfed.  They're all very healthy.  Honestly, we had to get over it when leaving T in the NICU, where she was supplemented with formula from the first days of her life.)

The real issue we have right now is that the baby has decided she doesn't want anything to do with bottles.  As of this Friday I will have exhausted every bit of allowable paid and unpaid vacation that our budget can handle. So this battle will be a serious problem in just a few days.  We introduced a bottle to L when she was very young, and she had no problem.  Fast forward a few weeks and she started refusing pacifiers.  I didn't think much of it, but when we went to give her a bottle again (pumped milk), she screamed as though we were torturing her.

Who needs a pacifier when I have a lovey?
We've tried offering different types of bottles, having someone else feed her, sitting in different rooms and in different positions.  We've even started taking her to daycare a few hours a day to see if she'll take a bottle from one of the teachers there.  No such luck.  We're now on three straight weeks of daily bottle 'training'.  I'm at my wits end.

It kills me to leave her without being sure that she will be well fed.  I'm desperate for advice.  Has anyone else gone through this?  What did you do to get through it?