Our (Im)perfect Baby

In a world where Facebook profile pictures are photoshopped (not mine) and blogs are written to tell everyone else how wonderful life is, I'm about to do the unthinkable.  I am going to admit that my baby is NOT perfect.  (But she comes close.)

Adriana taught herself to self-soothe.  I was really bad about picking her up when she cried.  Every Monday I would tell myself, "this is the week I'm going to let her cry it out."  One night when I was putting her to bed, she just wouldn't close her eyes.  I told her that I was going to get ready for bed, and I would come back to check on her in a minute.  I put her in her crib, and went to brush my teeth.  I looked at her on our monitor and saw that she was asleep.  So much for crying it out.  Since that time, if she startles herself awake, she sucks her hand and goes right back to sleep or stays quiet until I can get to her.  Perfect!

Adriana learned to sleep through the night without any strict scheduling/method.  When I was pregnant, I planned to use Baby Wise.  To me, it sounded great in theory, but not once I had my baby.  I know that it has worked very well for many families, but it didn't work for us.  Baby Wise (pretty much) promises that your baby will sleep through the night at 8 weeks.  That seemed very attractive to me since I'll be going back to work.  From what I've read, sleeping through the night is considered 6 hours.  At 8 weeks, Adriana was sleeping 7 hours at night.  At 11 weeks, Adriana woke up after 7 hours, but she didn't want to eat.  She just wanted to "talk."  I told her that it was time to eat or sleep, but not time to play.  She cried when I tried to feed her again, so I put her in bed.  She went back to sleep.  The next night, she didn't wake up after 7 hours.  She slept for almost 11 hours.  I thought it was a fluke, but she's done it every night since...anywhere from 10 - 12 hours.  Perfect!

Adriana is such a happy, social baby.  She smiles and babbles all day long.  She "talks" with inflection, and really seems to carry on a conversation with someone else.  She does pretty well with people she doesn't know, too.  She'll smile at perfect strangers and let anyone hold her.  Perfect!

Adriana travels in the car pretty well.  She runs errands with me on a pretty regular basis.  I do this so she'll be used to the car since we have to drive two hours to see my family.  I want her to be a good traveler, and she is.  When she was two weeks old, she cried some on the way home from Columbia City, but otherwise, she's been a great traveler.  Perfect!

Adriana is a good eater.  When I was pregnant, I worried about successfully breastfeeding.  It turns out my worries were unnecessary.  She was able to nurse wonderfully right from the start.  The lactation consultant at the hospital was shocked at how well she did, and the pediatrician was surprised at how much weight she gained in two weeks.  Perfect!

So...why am I saying that she's not perfect?  She's a good eater.  A little too good.  She doesn't want to change from what she knows.  In order to get breastfeeding established, we were advised to not give Adriana a bottle until she was three weeks old.  We did, and she took it right away without any problems.  We were thrilled!

However, when we tried a bottle again the next day, it didn't go as well.  She fussed more.  She played with the bottle more than she ate from it.  She choked.  She cried.  Each time after that got worse.  It got to the point where she flat-out refused to take a bottle.  As the days went on (and my return-to-work date got closer and closer), I got more and more stressed.  I pictured my baby screaming for the majority of the day while I was at work.

I told my friend Tracy about the trouble I was having, and she told me that she would get her to take a bottle.  On Thursday afternoon, Adriana and I headed over to Tracy's house for her feeding.  Tracy gave her the bottle, and she cried.  She screamed.  She wiggled around.  She made her body as stiff as a board.  But we didn't give up.  I refused to nurse her during that feeding.  We tried three different bottles, several different positions, and three different people (Tracy's sister was there, too).  She cried and screamed for three hours.  I cried a few times myself.  But somewhere in there, we managed to get three ounces of milk in Adriana's belly.  Then we went home.  Since it was time for the next feeding, I fed her.

On Friday, I decided to try again at home.  At about 2:00, I started trying to give Adriana a bottle.  She cried.  A lot.  She managed to drink about an ounce before she cried herself to sleep.  I kept the bottle in her mouth as she slept, and she drank two more ounces that way.  When she woke up, she pushed the bottle out of her mouth.  I figured she might be done since she had taken three ounces, so I put the bottle aside.  After a little while, she started to suck on my shirt, so I gave her the bottle again.  She let out two little whines, and then started to suck.  She finished two more ounces.  It was a little after 4:00.

Today Scott is trying.  She will eventually need to take the bottle from someone other than me, and I need to pump while she's eating so I don't dry up, so we thought it would be best to have Scott to give her the bottle when he can.  We started at 3:20 today.  She SCREAMED!  Once again, she fell asleep, and she drank some in her sleep.  It wasn't much this time, though.  She woke up around 4:30, and started to push the bottle out of her mouth again.  Then she started crying.  Scott walked around the house with her while she pushed the bottle around.  Finally, Scott handed her off to me, and after some more fighting, she finally took the bottle.  She drank four ounces all together.  She finished at 5:30ish.  It takes every kid 2 hours to take a bottle, right?

We think we figured out what to do differently tomorrow.  Stay tuned for more of Bottle Battle 2011.