Bottle Battle 2011 - Day 4

Today was better.

I have sought out help in getting Adriana to take a bottle.  I've talked to two different lactation consultants, read books, and searched the internet like crazy in hopes that someone would be able to give me the magical solution that would make her suddenly love bottles.  EVERYTHING said to present the bottle before Adriana is really hungry.  The thought is that by the time she is really hungry, she is too mad to eat.

Adriana thinks that philosophy is stupid.  Like her mother (have I mentioned she's practically my clone?), she seems to see no point in eating if she is not hungry.  Yesterday, Scott and I realized that she was trying to tell us this.  When we gave Adriana the bottle before she was hungry, she screamed and screamed, and nothing we did could make her suck on the bottle.  Once she got to the point where she was sucking on her hand (one of the ways she tells us she's hungry), she took the bottle as soon as she got calmed down.  We decided to use that today.

Adriana started to fuss around 2:30.  I expected her to get hungry around 3:00, so 2:30 wasn't totally unreasonable.  Scott showed her the bottle, and he put it to her lips, but not in her mouth.  She didn't want it, so he put the bottle down.  He tried a few more times when she would get fussy, but she didn't want it, so he didn't force it on her.  By 3:00, I was holding Adriana and Scott was vacuuming.  At 3:10, Adriana started to suck on my shoulder and her hand.  I gave her the bottle.  She cried, but I knew she was hungry and would be willing to take it soon.  She let me put the bottle in her mouth, but she still cried.  (I said today was better.  I didn't say she learned to love bottles overnight.)  I started to walk her around to calm her down.

At around 3:30, she had calmed down enough to start sucking on the bottle, but she wouldn't let me sit down.  Whenever I tried, she would start to cry again.

But, by 3:40 we had this:

*Note:  I'm sitting down with her.

And by 4:00, we had this:

Let's hope tomorrow is even better.  :-)