Johnny vs. Bottle

Just like the first bath post, this is a post chronicling something that happened about two weeks ago . . . alas.

Even though I know how important breastfeeding is and how good it is for the baby and mother and all of that, it comes with a burden: you can never leave your child. Not that I want to, per se, but there are things that I need to do, preferably without a baby in tow. Going to the dentist, for example. In order to do these things, I need to leave Johnny with someone else (most likely an ecstatic grandparent). However, since Johnny needs to eat every couple of hours, he needed to learn how to take a bottle; containing breastmilk, of course.

Before the actual event of giving Johnny his first bottle, I did some major research on mommy blogs and various mommy forums to find out which bottle their breastfed babies preferred. Since the Internet is so amazing, I came back with lots of information including how picky breastfed babies tend to be about the kind of nipple they're given; how different nipples can cause babies to become lazy at the breast and thus, prefer the bottle; and how you have introduce the bottle at the perfect time. If you introduce it too early, the baby might not take the breast anymore, but if you introduce it too late, they won't take the bottle at all. Yeah, way too much information for a new parent. So, I decided to introduce the bottle at 3.5 weeks of age and I headed to Babies 'R Us, faced the wall of nipples and came back with four different kinds . . . just in case.

The first bottle we tried was from The First Years called "BreastFlow." Promising, no? We thawed 2 ounces of breastmilk, stuck it in the bottle, and then John enticed our son by dripping some milk on his hungry lips. Did he take it? Yes, like a champ! He took it so well that he cleared those first two ounces in less than five minutes. And then he cried. So I defrosted two more. Downed them like a frat boy takes his Jager. So we tried two more, and finally he was satiated. John did very well feeding and then burping his son for the first time. Good job, hubby! After the first bottle, we tried the first pacifier, which Johnny also took to and currently enjoys from time to time.

After all of that Internet research, I've discovered that my child is pretty easy going and not particularly picky. He still breastfeeds easily and can take a bottle with the best of them. I sure hope all new experiences go this smoothly . . .