Bottle Woes Solved

Well, made better at least. But first, here's the bottle back story.

Little Miss did great with the bottle from practically day one. Because she dropped 10% of her body weight in her first 24 hours, we supplemented with formula for a day or two until I was able to pump enough to supplement with breast milk. This turned out to be a blessing and disguise because she easily switched back and forth between bottle and breast. This made it possible for My Love to give her the 6 am feeding so I could sleep for 4 or 5 hours. That was bliss in those early weeks.

We continued to give her bottles at least once or twice a week until about 3 months when Little Miss was having feeding problems and I didn't want one more variable in the list. I stopped pumping as much because I realized that all the milk in my freezer was no good because of her dairy allergy. Furthermore, I didn't know if any new milk I pumped would also be bad if I found out we were dealing with more than one food allergy. It just became easier to breastfeed and not worry about what I had eaten when I pumped whatever was in that bottle. The few times I tried to give her a full bottle in the third and fourth months, she had fought it. I knew we were in for a struggle but since it was easier to just breast feed her, I let it go.

Then we started giving Little Miss Zantac for her reflux. I started pumping 2-3 ounces at a time and making several 1/2 ounce bottles with the medicine in them. At first she wasn't a big fan of these small bottles but she soon realized that if she sucked them down, she got to the breast sooner. I thought, great, she's taking bottles really well again. A few weeks ago however, all that changed. She stopped taking those small bottles. She wasn't taking bottles at church or when we went out for date night. Uh oh, now I'm in trouble. Little Miss would rather just skip a feeding than take a bottle.

Then I had an epiphany. We had been given lots of Nuk latex nipples in the hospital. We had been using these all along. I realized late one night after a failed bottle attempt that those nipples we had been using since the beginning were newborn nipples...with newborn flow. Little Miss is no longer a newborn and her appetite is no longer that of a newborn. I had heard about not giving a breastfed baby a large or fast flow nipple too soon, especially from the beginning. I hadn't thought however, about how frustrated she must be getting just a trickle from the bottle when she can nurse quite efficiently now.

So last night when it was time to give her a bottle, I tried the regular flow nipples. She fussed for a few minutes and then... she sucked down 4.5 ounces. That's the most she's taken from a bottle in about 2 months. Granted, this was only one time but at least it gives me hope that we are not doomed to breast or nothing until we wean. I'm hoping to breastfeed until a year so with just over 6 months to go, I'm glad to think that being apart for more than a few hours is still a possibility.

Schedule at 5 months

I thought I'd share where we were a few weeks ago at 5 months and what we are doing differently in the last week or two. At five months, we were pretty much still on a 3 hour schedule with a dream feed.

8:15 nurse
9:15 nap (60 min. after waking)
11:15-11:30 nurse (she was napping really well and long so I often let her sleep a few extra minutes)
12:30 nap
2:15 nurse
3:15-3:30 nap (watching for sleep cues)
5-5:15 nurse (often waking around 4:30 or 4:45)
6-6:30 nap
7:45 wake if still sleeping
8 nurse
8:30 bedtime
10-11 dream feed

I realized that I was almost always waking her for the second and third feeds of the day. She really can go longer than 3 hours in the earlier part of the day. I also had been thinking about dropping the dream feed for many weeks but different things kept coming up. Then she started waking in the night and I thought perhaps either the fourth nap or the dream feed were causing sleep disruption in the night. Over the last several days we have moved to this schedule. Unfortunately, she had two vaccines Monday and has been teething as well but I decided to push ahead and hopefully get it all over at once.

8:15 nurse
9:20 nap
11:45 nurse
12:50 nap
3 nurse
4-4:30 nap (watching for sleep cues; the length of this nap is still variable depending on earlier naps and errands, etc)
6 nurse
8 nurse
8:30 bedtime

I have to admit that dropping the dream feed has been bittersweet. I loved that time snuggling her while she slept and I do miss it a bit. The last two nights I haven't fed her but I've gone in to kiss her one last time. Both nights she has stirred and cried for a minute or two just after I've left her room so tonight I'm not going to go in. It is also nice, however, to put her in bed at 8:30 and be able to do whatever I want with the rest of the night without needing to worry about stopping to feed her one last time.

Last night, she fussed for a few minutes around midnight and then woke up crying around 2:30. I knew from her cry that she was in pain but I wasn't sure if she was hungry as well. I gave her Tylenol, put a little Orajel on her gums, and tried for a few minutes to settle her back down. When she clearly wasn't going to fall back asleep, I decided to nurse her for a few minutes. She was still awake when I put her down about 8 minutes later but she went back to sleep relatively easily after I left her. I think it was just the teething that woke her so tonight I gave her some Motrin before bed to try to cover that preemptively.

5 months already!?!

I can't believe it's been five months since Little Miss joined our family. I'm absolutely loving motherhood and feel so incredibly blessed. For those of you who don't know, it took us 18 seemingly endless months to get pregnant with our little bundle of joy and though the first several months of pregnancy went quite smoothly, the last few were a real challenge. Sunday was Little Miss' dedication at church (the pic was taken after church) and the next day she turned 5 months on the nose. We seem to be in a good groove with her schedule and life is good.

Little Miss is the happiest, smiley-est baby around. Everyone always comments on how content and sociable she is. Several people have told us we should get her into modeling because her smile and her temperament are perfect for it. We are contemplating entering her in some photo contests and seeing if it goes anywhere.

Sleep Issues: I think, fingers crossed, we have turned the corner on her sleep difficulties. Her nap difficulties got better little by little just before she turned 4 months old. It started with her sleeping through the occasional nap with 5-10 minutes of crying in the middle. She then began only crying about 5 minutes. Now she will occasionally cry 45 minutes to an hour in but rarely cries very hard or very long.

Only about a week after the naps returned to being consistently good though, she started waking up in the night again. Up until then, I could count on half a hand the times she had woken in the night since 6 weeks when she had started sleeping through the night. It was right before Mother's Day and right around when she turned 4 months. I had read on Chronicles of a Babywise Mom that 4 month sleep problems are rather common so I wasn't too surprised. I knew she was learning how to roll from back to tummy and that she was practicing when she should have been sleeping. I also knew that she was really taking an interest in the world and had been much more distracted while nursing making full feeds more difficult during the day and I thought she might even be going through a growth spurt to boot.

I assumed that it was a hunger problem and sure enough, she took a full feed. That continued for a few nights until I questioned whether she was going to get used to feeding in the night and therefore if I was setting a new routine in a different direction than I wanted to go. I tried letting her cry for 5-10 minutes and then soothing her without feeding her, but she really was hungry so I ended up feeding her. Then one night she slept through. Then another night she would sleep until 6 (normal wake up is 8). Then she would go back to 4:30. There was even one or two nights she woke up twice to eat. She had a cold during this time so I really didn't want to do cry it out while she was sick so I kept feeding her when she woke and she kept eating. I actually didn't mind waking up all that much as I would just watch her nurse so peacefully and think about how fast she is growing up. My baby won't always be a baby so I'm doing my best to cherish every moment.

There was one night last week that I finally decided to let her cry. She cried for over an hour. I only checked on her once in that time as letting her see me only makes matters worse. I finally decided she really was hungry and wasn't going to fall back asleep so I fed her. That was a rough night. The next night she slept through till 8. She has slept through the night the last several nights though so I think we may be over the hump. Only time will tell.

Dairy Allergy and Reflux: At 2 months, I went off dairy (after mucousy, bloody stools) and Little Miss started eating better without fussing so much. At 3.5 months, she was fussy again and spitting up more and acting like she was in pain while eating. We put her on Zantac hoping it was reflux and not more food allergies. She got better (around that time her naps got better too). Around 4.5 months, she started fussing while eating and spitting up again. I called the doc and they upper her Zantac dosage so it is more in line with her current weight. Overall, she seems more comfortable but still has times when she struggles while she's nursing. I'm praying she's not allergic to anything else because selfishly I don't want to have to cut anything else out of my diet.