My baby never took a bottle. At the beginning, we held off so she could perfect her latch while nursing. Then, we didn’t even try because I was terrified of the automatic pump. When I felt ready to introduce her to the bottle, she refused…aggressively. We were given advice from mamas, websites, and articles often suggesting a particular bottle brand that they swear by. We have purchased over 10 kinds of bottles: tall bottles, cheap bottles, expensive bottles, short bottles, ones that look eerily similar to a nipple, colorful ones, and the list goes on. My daughter looked outright insulted when a bottle came close.
In addition to her refusing a bottle, this gave me the perfect “I can’t leave! She won’t take a bottle” excuse. Shopping outing with friends? Baby can come along! Date night out? Only if the restaurant has a high chair! Family willing to babysit? Sorry, she needs her mom! I literally could not leave my baby for more than a few unhappy hours.
When I got asked to be in my friends’ wedding in June in New England, I excitedly agreed and envisioned dancing the night away with my little family. “Oh yeah, sorry, I feel bad, but babies aren’t invited,” she told me as my heart started to race. When I got married, I had this ‘no baby’ rule also. I had only a few friends with babies at the time, and I figured “eh, who wouldn’t want a mini break from a baby!?” Now, it hit me. I had 4 months to somehow completely wean my daughter, make her take a bottle, and break other bad mom habits (co-sleeping, napping in my arms, nursing her to sleep…oops). Not to mention the scariest part of all which is to get on a plane and fly away from her for several days AND nights.
Shortly after she turned nine months, I knew it was time to start working on some of these habits. I did lots of research about weaning and wanted to make this process as comfortable and easy for both myself and my daughter. Step one was to replace the feedings I didn’t care as much about (midday) with formula. Since my daughter has a dairy allergy, we have the foul smelling and presumably worse tasting formula. My husband described it as tomatoes and vomit mixed together. I prepared the first bottle, 2 oz water, 1 big scoop tomato/vomit and carried my daughter to her room. We sat on the cozy glider the way I nurse her every day, and she starred at the bottle in my hand. Then she smiled.
My daughter started drinking the bottle. As she gulped it down, I felt myself start to feel a lump in my throat. Why was I so emotional? Blame it on the hormones from breastfeeding? When did she suddenly just grow up? Then to the irrational thoughts: She doesn’t need me anymore. She’s fine with anyone feeding her. Does she even know that I’m her mom if I stop breastfeeding? It seemed silly, but I felt like it was the start of her first life stage coming to an end.
It’s only been a few days since we started including the bottle into her diet. I still get the first feed in the morning and last one at night, which I look forward to. I know pretty soon, she will be fully weened and sipping happily on the tomato/vomit formula, but I also know everything will be okay.
Leah Moser 