I'm sure it will all work out in the end

Trip does not take a bottle. I am going back to work in two weeks. I’ve been a little nervous and worried since he’s already on the small side. I believe the old saying is that babies should double their birth weight by 4 months (definitely by 6 months) and triple it by a year. If they are exclusively breastfed for a year, they don’t always triple it by a year (but come close), but breastfed is much more likely to double by 4 months. Trip is not going to double his birthweight. He was 8 lbs 9 ounces. He is 4 months old today and is about 15 pounds (which is about 4 pounds lighter than Bobo was at 4 months).


Anyway, Trip does not take a bottle, so I am worried that he’ll starve to death or (almost as bad) reverse cycle when I go back to work. So, we’ve been throwing away hard-won breastmilk like crazy trying different bottles, different people, different nipples, positions, temperatures, etc. I mentioned the lack of bottle-taking to my mother-in-law who said she could do it, no problem. The nanny and I both laughed because, really, we’ve tried it all. But even though we thought she was a little…naïve? we were secretly hopeful that she was right. If she could do it, she could teach everyone else and I could return to work without fear of never sleeping again ever OMG.

So, we went on a family vacation with my in-laws and left my m-i-l with a bottle while I went out of earshot. When I got back, I heard unmistakable wailing, but that’s par for the course with the bottles so I wasn’t immediately concerned. Then she came out and said I should take the baby and feed him. She said he took a little and was quite proud of herself. I looked. He took a quarter of one ounce. She said, no, he was taking it. He took some. Yep. A quarter-ounce. I asked her how it went. Her answer was that he started taking a little, realized what was going on, got fussy, started squirming, wiggling and arching away from the bottle and that’s when she dropped him. Alrighty then.

====
I wasn’t blogging back when Chuckles was born. He didn’t take a bottle reliably; he reverse cycled. I was a wreck and a first-time mom and whatever. It all worked out and he’s a great kid who often sleeps through the night now that he’s 7. What I want to mention is about that new yahoo CEO. I think she’s a little nuts for saying she’ll take a couple of weeks off, but before I had Chuckles (my first), I did something similar (though much less public than she’s doing). I took a 9-day maternity leave. I had promised work that I would only take a week, but I had an emergency c-section and found it much harder to brush my teeth and dial the phone than I ever thought I would. I was the only engineer where I worked and someone needed to approve products and designs. It’s not exactly a function you can get a temp to do. Most customer inquiries could wait a week at the most, so I wasn’t overly worried but much more than that and we’d start to jeopardize delivery. Anyway, so I took 9 days completely off and then worked about half-time while caring for my newborn until I went back to the office full-time at 11 weeks. I did it. I survived. However, I would like to point out that I have taken 20 week maternity leaves for the next two kids (though I do email and keep up on what is going on…I have a new job with a different/bigger company now so my absence isn’t as keenly felt). She can do it if she wants. And she will probably have paid help whereas I was working and caring for the newborn. Sounds OK to me.

===

But if you do have any advice about bottle-taking, I will accept it (we've tried mimicking the nursing process and being as polar opposite as we can...warm/cool, different nipples, people locations, facing forward...we're going to try a sippy cup next week...today's bottle was given while he was laying on the changing table looking at himself in the mirror, but it still took an hour for him to take 2 ounces).  The only thing we haven't tried is a different beverage though I do have some formula samples I could use if anyone thinks that would help.  I'm also going to ask the pediatrician about solids at 4 months (are we doing that this time around?  What's the going theory on solids nowadays?) so that we have a back up way of feeding him if necessary.