AnonymousSo for those of you that know our story, you know all that we’ve struggled through the past 21 months with Hailey’s feeding. For those of you who don’t, the summary is that Hailey’s reflux got so bad that by 8 weeks she stopped breastfeeding and would also refuse a bottle. We tried everything, but couldn’t get her to take anything except by sleepfeeding her, which was also hit or miss. It would take almost 2 hours just to feed her a couple of ounces, and we were trapped in the house trying to feed her all the time. This was the only way we could get her to drink. She hated the bottle, and didn’t really care much for the cup either. It was always a struggle. Up until the new year, we still had to give it to her asleep.
BUT, the new development is that for a little while now, something changed for her, and she started to take her “sleep feeds” as sleepy feeds, while awake. She actually started to open her mouth willingly while awake, and even make sounds and say bottle indicating that she wanted it.
More recently, after the poisonous bottle thread, I was doing some bottle disposal, and I had TONS of them from our storage all over the counter. Hailey came into the kitchen and said “I want”. She just kept saying that she wanted something and I didn’t know what she was talking about, and then she said “I want bottle”. So I shockingly filled it up with soy milk and she sat down in front of the TV and proceeded to suck back a few ounces. It took her a long time, but she did it, and this was the first time in her life that she ever took the bottle and HELD it, and even more, drank it WILLINGLY WHILE AWAKE. I was shocked, and when dh saw, we both just stood there, and cried. We couldn’t believe how “normal” it looked.
It’s only happened a few times since then, but we’re happy nontheless. The irony, I guess, is that it comes at a time when toddlers should be weaning off the bottle. But hopefully it can offer us some hope as an alternative for when we officially wean night feeds in a few months.
