Perfectly Imperfect: The Baby Hates The Bottle (Part Deux)

So, it took me a while to "muster up the courage" to get Kambing to feed from the bottle. According to Doctor Ong, I must not be the one to feed her. Babies are very sensitive to the scent of their mother, and when they know that the original source of milk is available, they are more likely to refuse the bottle.

Some of the other things he mentioned about getting baby to bottlefeed was:

Do not be in the room when someone else is attempting to feed her from the bottle.
Do not give in.
Do NOT give in.
DO NOT give in.
Try and stick to a routine where she feeds from the bottle at the same time everyday.
If she still refuses, try and stick a bottle into her mouth while she's sleeping aka dreamfeeding.

I had to get it right. I had ONE CHANCE. And I sure as hell didn't want to mess it up. So when Hegen was kind enough to send me a couple of bottles and teats that was suitable for her age, I took a while to let Kambing familiarise herself with them.

The photos you see here are the result of the "bottle familiarisation", as I would like to call it. Heh.

So far, so good. She seemed pretty eager and curious about each item presented to her.

Of course, I had to strategize. I wasn't going to feed her right away! Not with milk at least. We then headed out to participate in her SG50 Baby's Day Out: My First National Day Party.

My plan was to wait to see if she got fussy while we were out, and to give her the bottle as a source of distraction from the flurry of activity around her. Instead of putting milk in there, I put a wee bit of water and kept it on standby.

There was much to see and do that day, and she sure had a good time. As expected, she readily and sportingly flashed the camera her signature look: The Panda Cheese Stare.

Sidenote: This baby is super sensitive to spying cameras. She will be laughing and smiling but the minute she realizes the lens is on her, the face changes.

She was on her best behaviour and I almost had no chance to pull out the bottle until we were on our way home! Then, she started to gripe about having to sit in the stroller while the exciting world rolled by.

"MUAHAHA! It's TIME," I chuckled out loud (maniacal laughter included), whipped out the bottle, and handed it over to her. Thankfully, she's at the age where everything given to her would go straight into her mouth ("the odds are so ever in my favour, my child"), so the bottle was no exception.

I couldn't tell if she had any water to drink, because she didn't seem to be sucking as much as she was chewing. But at the very least, she wasn't rejecting it, as she did with the 250716 (I'm exaggerating) other bottles we gave her.

Whoppeedoo! Looked good so far.

Who's to know, the very next day was The Day for The Ultimate Test. I had intended to rush home from Jurong between my shows to feed her, but something came up unexpectedly, and I wouldn't have been able to make it home in time and back. This provided a window of opportunity for us to put the Hegen to the test. I called home and got Chun to TRY and feed her, and as soon as I could, I called home again to see how things were going.

She had finished a whole bottle of expressed milk. Heartily and happily, she drank it all. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and repeated my question several times to the same answer; SUCCESS.