how not to bottle feed
I was sitting at the airport this afternoon, waiting to fly home. Airports give you a lot of time to watch people… and across from me a new family doted over their baby girl. She looked to be about five, six months old, and the mother cradled her baby in her arms and cooed and fussed while the babe drank a bottle. A peaceful enough scene, no?
Until the baby decided she only wanted to drink half the bottle. I watched a silent, unnecessary battle unfold. The mother pushed the bottle into her babe’s mouth, and the child arched, and fussed, and pushed at the bottle with her hands. Mom didn’t take the hint, and tried again. And again. And again. Until finally, mom had her kid against her knees, and was sighing and rolling her eyes and frowning, all the while trying to convince her daughter to eat.
No baby ever willingly starved herself to death. Forcing a child to drink a bottle when she’s already full only teaches how to ignore our body’s own common sense, and sets the child up for a lifetime of bad eating habits.
If you are not, for whatever reason, nursing your child, please don’t force him or her to finish a bottle. Let the child decide when that little tummy is full, and respect it. Your kid will grow up healthier and happier because of it.
I am an AP mom who cloth diapers, babywears, cosleeps, is against RIC. I wish so badly I had breastfed and I will breastfeed my next for as long as they want to keep going.
The thing is my oldest daughter was born with no frenulum and silent reflux. She literally refused to eat. I took her to dr after dr who kept brushing me off insisting she wouldn’t starve herself. Well she was being ffed, and she was drinking 3 oz a day tops.. She was rapidly loosing weight, and every feeding was a stressful battle, to try and get something into her.. When she was 10 months a dr finally took us seriously when he realized she only weighed 14 lbs and had been 15 lbs at 3 months.. She ended up having to be taught how to swallow by early intervention.
This was the scariest time of my life.. I was certain my baby was going to starve herself to death. I am not saying this mother was going thru the same thing, maybe she was just paranoid, but I feel for her, cause I remember the stares and weird looks I would get while trying to get my daughter to just take a few sips.
I just wanted to let you know that she could have been a new mom who was having problems with the baby eating, or maybe a dumb dr was on her case about the babies weight or something (you know how they get)
Just want to show the other side a bit.
Meghan, i’m sorry it took so long to get back to you. I’ve been waaaay sick.
Oh, when I’m not cranky and miserable, I try to look at things with a more tolerant eye. I do hope she was just a new mom with all those worries we all have, in spades. I sat behind them on the flight and the poor little babe cried the whole way, because of turbulance, but I didn’t care. The couple was sweet to their baby and to each other the entire time, and that counts for a lot.
Props to you for being tenacious and not giving up when the doc’s said there was nothing wrong with your daughter. Obviously, yours was the extreme exception that proves the rule. How’s she doing now??