We have begun introducing bottled breast milk to the feeding routine for our baby boy. He's seven weeks old now, and his mom finally felt comfortable that the bottle would not introduce too much "nipple confusion".
This transition to sharing the feeding duties is striking me as both good and bad.
The "good" may be obvious...I have wanted, for some time now, to free his Mom from having to be constantly caught up in the cycle of feeding; she has more or less been "on the hook" for feedings every 2-3 hours for 7 weeks now, and I know that has been exhausting.
Still - I have tried for two mornings in a row to feed my son a bottle (Mom has been disciplined about pumping a little every few hours to produce the "extra" feeding without dramatically changing her production volume, which is too complicated a topic to discuss in this post), and both mornings so far have bee tough.
In the pic above, you can see him being adorable, but this shot was captured in a quiet moment between scenes of "pissed off baby" theater...you see, that space between his face and my chest is supposed to be occupied by sweet Momma-Boob, at least in his world view.
Two times does not make a trend (I hope), but so far each "feeding" of a single four oz bottle took more than 2 hours, multiple diaper changes, and a fair amount of tears (his, not mine...yet).
I'm just looking forward to the supposed feelings of intimate connection I will get from looking down on my sweet child while he takes the food I offer. I'm not there yet.
This transition to sharing the feeding duties is striking me as both good and bad.
The "good" may be obvious...I have wanted, for some time now, to free his Mom from having to be constantly caught up in the cycle of feeding; she has more or less been "on the hook" for feedings every 2-3 hours for 7 weeks now, and I know that has been exhausting.
Still - I have tried for two mornings in a row to feed my son a bottle (Mom has been disciplined about pumping a little every few hours to produce the "extra" feeding without dramatically changing her production volume, which is too complicated a topic to discuss in this post), and both mornings so far have bee tough.
In the pic above, you can see him being adorable, but this shot was captured in a quiet moment between scenes of "pissed off baby" theater...you see, that space between his face and my chest is supposed to be occupied by sweet Momma-Boob, at least in his world view.
Two times does not make a trend (I hope), but so far each "feeding" of a single four oz bottle took more than 2 hours, multiple diaper changes, and a fair amount of tears (his, not mine...yet).
I'm just looking forward to the supposed feelings of intimate connection I will get from looking down on my sweet child while he takes the food I offer. I'm not there yet.
Great picture, at least! Hopefully that will be the lasting memory, not the pissed-off-baby-theater.
ReplyDeleteGood luck.
I realize I'm pretty late to this post, so the crisis has probably past, but I just wanted to wish you luck! We introduced a bottle to Stella at 6 weeks and it was AWFUL. She never really would take one, and we tried EVERYTHING. So for 10 months I was on the hook for nursing every 4 hours. And the drama of trying to get her to take one was awful, too -- either nursing or pumping every 2 hours to have enough milk for that bottle that she never ended up taking -- so stressful. So good for Amber for doing such a great job nursing and I hope that Jude catches on or has caught on!
ReplyDeleteLet's just hope this particular drama does not go on here for 10 months...we are committed to breast milk for 1 year, but the bottle feedings are going to HAVE to get better.
ReplyDelete