Triumphs and Tragedies

So as I mentioned in my last post, Timmy started refusing to take a bottle about a week ago.* He has had about 8 bottles per week since he was one week old and never had trouble at all. Then all of the sudden, he adamantly refused to eat unless it was nursing. This was pretty stressful because our new babysitter starts Wednesday. She'll be here 8 hours a day so that I can study for the Bar Exam. Considering Timmy normally eats every 3 or 4 hours, this was going to be a problem.

We tried everything to get him to take a bottle. PJO would try to feed him with me in the other room or out of the apartment, I tried to feed him. We put Timmy facing out and in his bouncer seat. We tried sweetening the deal with a little sugar, and he actually took a bottle with chamomile tea and sugar, but then wouldn't take the breast milk after that. We tried feeding him when he was starving and when he had just woken up from a nap and was happy. No go.

Then we started trying different bottles. Maybe he just had developed an aversion to Dr. Brown's?



We tried an Avent bottle



a Playtex drop-in



a bottle called Adiri



then a Nuby sippy cup


and an Avent sippy cup


In sum, we tried all of these and all of them ended in a big fat fail. He seemed very annoyed that we were persisting. In no event was he going to give in and eat. His hunger strike was a testament to his dedication and stubbornness.




So I called the pediatrician and a lactation consultant. Both said that he is obviously associating Mom with eating and I needed to basically give him the milk in a completely different way. Since he is able to sit up, refuse food by turning away, grab for food and he wants whatever we have, we figured he might be ready to start solids. We originally had wanted to wait until he was 6 months old, but both the doctor and the consultant suggested we try rice cereal since he wasn't going to eat at all during the day otherwise.

Well now I think Timmy might have been planning this all along! He never hesitated for a second, from the very first spoonful, he was gulping down bite after bite of cereal from the spoon.



If we had let him, he would have slurped directly from the bowl. We actually gave him two servings and he looked quite pleased with himself.




I'm still holding out hope that he'll take a bottle from the babysitter when she starts. But I guess if he doesn't we'll still be able to feed him the calories he so desperately needs. er... the calories he so desperately wants and has become accustomed to!

* Thanks for the comments :) I thought that maybe it had something to do with teething, but the teeth don't appear any closer to breaking through than they did a month ago. I think he is just reaching a point where he is that much more aware of everything going on around him and can recognize boobs and bottles. oh well!