...The definition of Motherhood I'm discovering! Ever since I finally excepted the fact that Christopher was going to be a formula fed baby, I have to admit I've been a little nuts about finding the perfect formula, bottles, nipples, etc. (not breast feeding guilt is worse than Catholic guilt!). So first up was the formula challenge. I asked several friends who have children and my pediatrician what they recommended. Unanimously it was Enfamil formula they recommended, which was great because I received two free trial canisters in the mail so I was set to go. Now, the life of and mixing formula is a science of its own. I read the instructions carefully (mix with water...once made, can live in refrigerator for 24 hours or 2 hours at room temperature). Now I had to find the perfect bottle, which also includes finding the right nipple. I first tried the Avent 4 oz bottles with their beginner nipples and the flow was too much. I then tried a bottle that my girlfriend Emily so kindly dropped off for a go, unfortunately Christopher did not take to this nipple or the flow as well. My mother who was visiting ran out and purchased a Born Free bottle and a Dr. Brown's bottle to try. Are you starting to see how easily this journey can lead to crazyville, why so many bottles!!! Anyway, luckily Christopher took to the Born Free bottle with their level 1 nipple. So now I had my formula and my bottles. Did I mention that there are 8 parts to the Born Free bottles! I did not let this stop me, for this is the bottle my son had decided for himself. So, now it's about timing. How do you make the formula and have all your bottle parts ready in time for when your little one is ready to eat, or in my case, when my big boy is screaming for food! Now, from talking again with my girlfriends some recommended serving at room temperature, some recommended heating, and some recommended pre-made bottles and heating right before you serve. Since my guy wants his food fast, and I have all those damn bottle parts to mess with, I decided to go with the "pre-made" version. So I would make 3 to 4 bottles at at time. This seemed to work out OK in the beginning. When my little guy would stir around his feeding time, I would go turn on the hot water, get a bottle out of the fridge, then soak the bottle in a mug of hot water for a few minutes. Well sometimes this process wasn't fast enough, and then I also began to realize that the formula wouldn't always flow well through the nipple holes creating frustration for consumer and provider as well. At first though, I thought it was the nipple size that was no longer pleasing my little guy (refer to blog title "Mother of the Week", I now know that I must revoke my title!). So after buying the next flow nipples, and having trouble with them after awhile I decided to move on to another bottle. Oh, I haven't mentioned the fact that my poor little man has extreme gas between the hours of 4-7am, the reason my mission really became an obsession. So now we are also putting Mylicon gas relief drops in his formula and Gripe Water every once in awhile because he also gets terrible hiccups at times. If you are still with me and this story, bless you! Anyway, after talking with my girlfriend Jennifer yesterday, I decided to try the Platex Drop-in bottles she highly recommended. So I rushed off to Toys-R-Us knowing that this was going to be the answer. When I got home I sterilized all the parts, as I did with all the other bottles I tried. When I pulled everything out of the boiling water I was shocked to see that the new bottle bodies had shrunk. I called Jennifer quickly for assistance and she informed me since the bottles use a bag instead of the formula going directly into them, you don't sterilize the bottle body! Great, I just destroyed two bottles, but luckily I had bought two more. So, next I had to figure out how to get the air out of the bags that go into these bottles. To make a long story short (which I know I haven't!), I failed miserably at getting the air out of the bag with the first bottle we gave Christopher in this new bottle. The next bottle was a little better, but our previous mishap got us good. Christopher began to spitting up his formula really badly and had terrible gas for most of the evening. Now I had made my little one's gas troubles worse! Our son has never cried so much. I felt so terrible, and my husband and I began to also think something else may be wrong...back to me melting those darn bottle bodies...We began to think that maybe the residue from them got on the nipples that we also sterilized along with them. Now a call to poison control (Are we a bit extreme or what!). Thank goodness the kind poison control lady informed me that she didn't think this was the case and that he would be vomiting if there was a true problem. After a few hours of calming Christopher down, re-sterilizing all of my bottle parts, several calls to my girlfriend Jennifer, I decided to go back to the Born Free bottles and see if heating the formula would help the flow. Our first go with heating the formula went great! That night as I was feeding Christopher it finally hit me that we really needed to be heating the formula all along or at least using room temperature formula to ensure proper flow through these nipples. I then began to realize the medium flow nipples I was using were too much now that we got them working properly. So, for what I hope to be the final frontier with this crazy endeavor, I woke this morning and went back to the level one nipples with heated formula to see how things flowed, and wouldn't you know it... it was perfect! I'm really embarrassed to share this, but I hope I can look back at this and laugh someday, and I also hope that I'm not officially nuts, that other rookie moms have gone through similar spells as well. If so, please share...
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