Food is food, right?

Ah, if only life were as simple as Frankie eating breastmilk or formula when it is offered her and she's hungry. She started refusing bottles (of anything) about a month ago, and we've been working with her ever since to get her to take them again. We bought new bottles thinking maybe she didn't like her old bottles, we tried to give her the milk at various temperatures, times of day, and with Mommy in the room and with Mommy not allowed in the room. We got almost superstitious about the procedure - she seemed to take the bottle, but it had to be the brown non-silicone naturalatch slow-flow nipple, just the right temperature, I had to be out of the room, and Chris perfected his bounce, shush, and feed technique. We also made an effort to give her a bottle when she would be most hungry - first thing in the morning. All this effort has been made due to the fact that she needs to take bottles two days a week from Heather, her babysitter, while I'm at work. We saved any pumped breastmilk I had to give to Heather, thinking that if she prefers the breast to the bottle, she'd prefer breastmilk from a bottle rather than formula, and would eat better for Heather.

WRONG. Her behavior in the last week has indicated that she prefers for breastmilk to come from the boob, and formula to come from the bottle. Her favorite is still breastmilk from the breast, but she's learned to tolerate (again) formula from the bottle. We can even switch up the bottle, the time of day, and I can even feed her from the bottle, as long as it's formula, and as long as she's hungry. Chris did a quick experiment with her where he had one bottle of breastmilk and one bottle of formula - he'd give her the breastmilk and she'd scream, give her the formula, and she'd start sucking right away.

So tomorrow Heather's going to try to give her formula instead of breastmilk - here's hoping that she takes the bottles!


Milk Stupor (and full on milk-beard) after Mommy (yeah Frankie!) was able to feed her some formula from a bottle.