Perhaps we should have recognized that previous picture as foreboding. This was going to be a light, happy post full of pictures for that 7-9 things meme that’s going around, since we’ve been tagged and all, but we’ll tackle that one tomorrow. Here’s a little about our last two evenings.
Nutella had her last physical therapy appointment yesterday, so I was at home with little Mr. Curly for an hour. The timing was such that I was going to give him a bottle of breastmilk…no big deal. He’s been taking bottles on and off for a while now, though mostly feeding from the actual breast 90% of the time. So I begin to feed him, he sucks down an ounce, and then proceeds to SCREAMOHMYGODMAKEMEDEAF. Now, Nutella told me he hadn’t napped all day so my immediate thought was: Overtired. It happens. I finally get him calm, Nutella arrives home, feeds him from the boob, and he goes to sleep.
Tonight we spy some breastmilk in the fridge that is about to expire, so we decide I will give him that before sleep and then Nutella will finish him off with the boob. As soon as the bottle goes in his mouth (and yes, the milk was room temperature and tasted fine), he proceeds to SCREAMBLOODYMURDER again. And he’s had several naps throughout the day. It’s like something just clicked in his 2-month brain and he only. wants. boob. Unfortunately, he needs to be able to take a bottle, too. We had planned on going out on our beach trip and having the g-parents give him a bottle. Not to mention Nutella is going back to work soon and there will only be bottles during the day.
So, over the next two hours, we proceeded to try and feed him the bottle, try and maintain some sense of sanity and hearing while he screamed, calm him and try the whole thing over and over and over again. He finally got so tired and so hungry, he gave up and gulped down what was in the bottle. Tomorrow we’re going to do bottles and breast every other feeding until he accepts the bottle again without a fuss. This is definitely one of those Not Fun times of parenthood. My ears are still ringing.
1 In Vermillion 
Delurking to say OMG, I feel your pain. I went through this with our son. It was HORRIBLE. Our plan of attack was this: Every day, a couple of times a day, I would try to feed him a bottle. My partner would leave the room (and sometimes the house). I would try for, I don’t know, 10-20 minutes and then she would feed him. We tried every single day. It took about two weeks. But finally, one night, he took the bottle! And after that we were fine. And it was funny because when he finally took it, he didn’t even fuss… he just took it. We also made sure that I didn’t sit in the same room that he was normally breastfed in – breaking routine a bit so he wasn’t anticipating being breastfed.
We had the same situation, he’d had a bottle all along sometimes, not every day but enough that he was used to it, but I think we’d gone a couple of weeks without giving him one so when we went to give him one again, there was no way in hell he was going to take it.
Keep at it. Eventually he’ll take it and we found it so much more convenient that he would breastfeed and bottle feed.
Good luck!
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Aw man! Good luck tomorrow.
Just as I though….Miles has inherited Nutella’s lung capacity. Maybe you need earplugs. Or those sound blocking headphone looking things that some builders use.
Oh no! I hope today is more successful!
See you guys soon!!!
Sounds like a very challenging day!! I hope it eases soon.
oh no! sounds like a rough day. hope things improve today and he accepts the bottle a bit easier. good luck!
Yikes!
My little ones screams that way when the nipple isnt going fast enough! I think my ears die every time.
Ugh! Frustrating for you but I when I think about it from his perspective – bottle/boob, bottle/boob – I think I’d choose boob too! I hope the little man gets the hang of the bottle VERY soon.
I see from your more recent post that the bottle feeding is going better (glad to hear it!). Just wanted to recommend ear plugs for the mommies 🙂
Turning down the volume a little can make the screaming a little easier to take in situations like these!
they get so much more from the boob then just milk, so it can be hard. i’m glad it’s going better.