Monday, August 15, 2005

Back on the Bottle This weekend was a learning experience. I tried to feed the kiddo Friday afternoon, only to be greeted by more screaming and wild thrashing of limbs. Mom was trying to take a nap, but ended up feeding him instead while I stewed in self-doubt and worry. Suddenly the idea of little O starving for eight hours until Mom came home seemed like a real possibility. So I did what any smart parent would. I hit the Internet. I needed to know these things: 1. That I wasn't alone. 2. Why he wasn't feeding (and how to correct the problem) 3. That he wouldn't actually starve himself - in other words, that he would really eat when he needed food and wouldn't just hold out because he didn't like me, or the way I was holding the bottle, or because he didn't like me. So we studied, and studied, and studied some more. Mom found websites and passed them to me. And we learned lots. Here's a few nice nuggets of wisdom. Don't feed a baby when they're ravenously hungry. This does not mean that you should starve the baby. Rather, try to catch them before it gets to this point. A starving baby doesn't want to mess around with bottles - he wants the breast. Milk changes when it's stored. It gets odors. It can get slightly sour from being frozen and thawed. Try to use the fresh stuff. To wit... If your baby doesn't take a refrigerated bottle of milk, try the fresh stuff. Try having Mom pump and leave it out. (Breast milk at room temperature can last as long as 10 hours.) That way, the baby's got the closest thing to actual mother's milk from mom. Try different positions. Cradling the baby, rocking, swaying back and forth, even laying down can sometimes work as feeding positions. Apparently, sometimes babies will only eat when walking, or rocking. Who knew? Make sure mom's out of range - sight and smell. I think when the kid woke up on Thursday night, he smelled his mother and got all excited for milk. When you're trying to bottle-feed a baby and he smells mom, it's all over, because they will always prefer the real thing. Babies react to stress. If you're tense, they're tense. Even if you can't imagine how, relax. It helps. So we tried again Friday night. Mom pumped some fresh milk and left it out. I had an ounce of milk in a bottle and another 1 1/2 ounces in a second bottle. We waited. I cradled him and tried to coax him to sleep, not really believing that he would. (He didn't.) Around 8:45, I got my bottles and brought them over to the rocking chair, casually putting them in his line of sight without making a big deal about it. Around 9:00, he started idly sucking on his fingers, the first sign of hunger. So I brought the bottle up casually, let him look at it for a second, and gently offered it to him. And whattaya know? He ate! He ate an ounce. I tried to give him more, and then he got a little irritated. But he ate. Woo-hoo! The next night, we tried the same formula - fresh milk, relaxed dad, get him before he's starving. He ate 2 ounces. The big test was Sunday. Mom was exhausted - an early morning and a long day. I offered to watch the kid for a while. She pumped a prodigious amount of milk - 4 1/2 ounces, in two bottles. (It was 5:30 - much earlier than our usual time together.) Ollie slept for about thirty minutes in his glorious swing, and then popped his eyes open. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say I swooped down upon him. Within sixty seconds, he was in my lap, and snacking away like a champ. He devoured the first two ounces, and so I added another ounce. Gone. I added the rest, and he dutifully inhaled the rest. 4 1/2 ounces, just like that, and he was happy and well-fed. Success! The lesson for today: if it doesn't work once, don't panic. Try it again. Think about what you're trying to do. Consult the experts. And ferchrisake, relax. I think my two biggest mistakes were trying to feed him when he was crazy hungry, and I was tensed up. By the way, success will help you relax. And you have to relax to be successful. It's a vicious circle. Welcome to the big bad world of parenting. 7:31:21 PM     Speak up!  []