About Neige Var
Once upon a time, Neige Var was an operating room nurse and downtown dweller who leisurely spent her time dining out or entertaining friends. The birth of her son changed all that. Now she's a snap-happy suburban mom on unpaid leave with a knack for organizing play dates. Check in with Neige as she continues to adjust to her new role, her new location and her new life.
When Nevan was four weeks old, we introduced him to the bottle. Well, we tried to introduce him to the bottle. Nevan flat out refused.
We did as we were supposed to: we only gave him freshly pumped breastmilk and waited till he was eager and hungry (but not too hungry or frantic). As advised by our pediatrician, the psychologist at the feeding clinic and our friend who is a pediatric nutritionist, Kamal gave the bottle and we were at it everyday. But Nevan would not be fooled. It was almost like he was humoring us, playing with the nipple, chewing it, smiling at us yet refusing to suck down the milk.
I realize it isn’t the end of the world. Nevan is a great baby and is easy enough to tote everywhere I go. That said, I would like to leave him with a grandma for an hour or two, and not worry that he might get hungry in my absence. And it would have been so helpful to have him take to the bottle last week during the wedding festivities, but I digress….
New bottles on the block
Two bottles that weren’t around when we tried to get Neelan to drink are the Mimijumi and Medela’s Calma bottles. Testimonials of these products make them sound like they would be the answer to our prayers. I couldn’t wait to try them out.
Mimijumi’s “very hungry bottle” was created by two psychiatrist and an industrial designer. It’s flesh-colored and basically resembles a breast. It has a lot of positive reviews and a mommy-friend of mine says her son takes to it “no prob.” Design-wise, this bottle is certainly one of a kind, but I find the nipple too long for Nevan, who has occasionally gagged on it.
Medela’s Calma bottle sounded awesome. It claims to allow babies to keep their natural feeding behavior learned on the breast. You only need ONE nipple, as opposed to changing nipples for slow or fast flow. I was really hoping this bottle would do the job, but Nevan has yet to take to it.
So much for Nevan and new technologies.
Old school
Nevan still doesn’t take to the bottle, but we seem to have achieved the most success with basic bottles, like Evenflo and Gerber. The nipples are short and I have noticed that in certain instances, Nevan seems to prefer latex to silicone. On the very rare occasion, Nevan has taken a suck or two from Playtex’s drop-in bottle. It’s amusing, because this was the bottle that his older brother took to as well.
In the meantime, we will continue to encourage Nevan to take to the bottle. Till then, wish us luck.
Image: Adam Davis, stock.xchng
