Bottle Shock ... How Can It Be This Hard???

So it's a beautiful August evening. Sunny, warm, breezy. A perfect night to sit outside on the porch and relax. Our friends from Virginia are coming to visit tomorrow, so it would also be a good night to straighten up the house and decide what we might do with them ... other than take them to see Emma. What am I doing instead though? Driving all over Cambridge and Somerville looking for baby bottles and nipples!

When Emma was first born and was learning to eat, she was fed with a small plastic bottle that was very scientific looking. Every drop that she consumed had to be measured to be sure she was eating enough and didn't need to be fed through a feeding tube. The nipple used on this type of bottle is a standard, yellow, latex looking, but latex-free, disposable nipple made my Similac.

She has done very well with this type of nipple, however, they are one time use and we are not allowed to go home with any (although my postpartum nurse gave me a few). Now that Emma is older, we still have to measure how much she takes, but she eats well above her 'daily minumums', so we don't have to be quite as exact. The nurses suggested that we bring in the bottles that we were planning to use at home to see if she liked them. I was fine with that and thought, "She has a good suck. This should be no problem!" So I brought in my newly sterilized Born Free bottles with both a slow flow and a medium flow nipple. I wanted to be BPA free, of course! We tried both. Neither worked. I was perplexed, but thought perhaps it was just because they were wide based and she was used to standard. I brought in the Playtex Ventaire. "Shouldn't be a problem. These will work!" I thought. Wrong again. The nurse thought the flow was too slow. So I was off to Babies R' Us in search of medium flow. Guess what? Platex doesn't make medium only slow and fast. So we tried the fast. It was ok, but she still didn't seem to like it. After many more tries and many more bottles, we settled on the inexpensive, plastic EvenFlo with a standard, latex, medium flow nipple.



We determined that she didn't like the clear silicone. It only took about 8 trips between Babies R Us and Target to get this worked out. Until today...

We came into see Emma and met with her nurse, Kathy (one of our favorites). She asked if we liked the bottle we were using and if we thought Emma was messy with it . Well, Emma is messy with every bottle, but we had noticed she was leaking more lately. Kathy had never fed her with this bottle and was surprised by just how many face cloths she went though during her feeding. She decided to weigh them and see how much she actually lost. She estimated that she had lost 70 mL!!! That's almost a whole feeding!!! No wonder she hasn't been gaining weight as fast as she should be! By the way, she is gaining weight, but they had to raise her calorie level. Maybe she doesn't need more calories, she just needs to actually swallow the calories instead of wearing them. So, Kathy suggested sticking with the latex nipple, but going with a slow flow to see if that would help. She also said that they've had a lot of success with the Playtex Drop-Ins. So off I was again to Babies R Us ... no slow flow. Then to Target ... no slow flow ... but I did get a Platex Drop-Ins bottle with a latex nipple to try. It came with slow flow, but not wanting to make another trip, I bought a fast flow too. Remember, Playtex doesn't make a medium flow ... oh, except in an orthodontic style. Makes a lot of sense to me!!! We tried it when I got back, but she fell asleep about 5 minutes into her feeding. Guess she wasn't really hungry.

Still frustrated by not being able to find the right nipple, I set out this evening to find it. I also needed refills for the Drop-Ins just in case they actually worked! I went to CVS, Shaws, Walgreens, Foodmaster, Rite Aide, a different Target, and back to Rite Aide only to return home with the Drop-Ins liners. No slow flow, latex nipples!!! I sincerely hope that the Drop-Ins bottle works tonight for her nurses because, in addition to the other possibly now useless collection of bottles and nipples, we also now have 50 Platex Drop-Ins liners!



How can it be this hard??? Even Emma looks surprised!

Thanks for letting me vent!