Ladies....am I out of line here? I'm theorizing that b/c I don't have a partner/SO, I've peaked. I can't think of any female MDs or Partners that are single and child free. It can be difficult to connect with men - strictly business- in leadership positions (internal and clients) as a single attractive female.
Based on my observations and experience, leadership (mostly men, shocker) are more comfortable around the women that are wives, have kids, or older, etc. or male colleagues/subordinates.
Check the nipple flow (maybe too fast or slow) or change up the bottle. With my 2.5 year old I used to rotate her between Nuk and Dr Brown bottles. With my 7 mo old he just likes the stage 1 (slow) nipple in the nuk.
Yeah. We moved up a nipple size and it worked!
Conversation Starter
Thank you! Tried this today and it worked wonders!
Rising Star
This was me between 2 and 3 months and it was a disaster. We tried everything and very slowly things improved but I don’t know which things actually helped. My guess is that the baby just grew out of it. Things we did and my opinion of if it helped:
- changed bottles (negligible impact)
- changed formula to hypoallergenic on pediatricians advice (baby became less gassy so maybe helped)
- changed schedule to feed every 3 hours (I think this helped in the long term but not immediately)
- fed baby in quiet space so as not to distract (helps sometimes, not all the time)
- rocking or standing while feeding (helped a bit when nothing else would)
- read a book about feeding aversion which basically says your job is to offer food, their job is to eat, don’t pressure them (helped a lot in the long term. I now recognize there are some days the baby is hungrier than other and that is ok)
Honestly it was a struggle for a month and slowly started improving. At 6 months we very rarely have eating issues. She went from struggling to get 16 oz in to having 25 to 28 regularly.
Final advice. Your baby will not starve. He or she will be fine and you will both get through this. I remember being so distraught when my LO didn’t want to eat. I was crying every day. With some perspective, I was being too dramatic. My pediatrician was not worried and so I shouldn’t have panicked either. Keep the perspective on the longer trend and overall eating experience vs the hour to hour or daily total ounces. Good luck and feel free to DM me if you want to talk this through. This was the hardest thing for me so far with my baby.
Rising Star
Oh! One thing that was actually very effective for us. Our LO would often fall asleep when eating and actually ate better when held asleep so we switched the routine to be sleep, play, eat. We also got in a good feed during her dream feed in the evening.
Conversation Starter
Thanks everyone for your inputs! Changed the nipples today and it worked!
Pro
We add movement and ensure the milk is warm. By movement I mean, my wife starts the bottle session while walking and then progresses to the medicine ball and then tinge rocker. We are hoping to add less and less movement each time but it works ... my lactation consultant advised against going up in the nipple size. So far no trouble there
Same issue! Are you nursing? Recommend Lansinoh, which was the only bottle my breastfed baby would take!