Sunday night was our first attempt at giving Elijah a bottle. I nursed him at 9 pm and went to sleep. Around midnight the sound of his cries woke up me (through my ear plugs). I listened for a while and then got out of bed to see what the problem was. Andy had forgotten to take the milk out of the freezer ahead of time. You can’t microwave breast milk, so he thawed it in hot water. It was only two ounces of milk, so it thawed pretty quickly … but “pretty quickly” wasn’t quickly enough for the starving baby who has NEVER BEEN FED EVER, or so he tried to tell us. I worked on thawing the milk while Andy calmed Eli the best he could. Once it was ready I went back to bed. Alas, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I blame hormones, as I certainly should be tired enough.
Itty bitty little freezer bottles:
I didn’t know how much Elijah was eating, so I froze the milk in two ounce servings. He drank two bottles! I think four ounces of milk per feeding is on the upper end for a baby his age. He wasn’t hungry again until 3:30am (and he latched right on, no nipple confusion!). I think he might have eaten more from the bottle than he does from the breast. This would mean a even longer period of sleep for me if we can get it to work!
Giving the baby a bottle = Success
Giving the baby a bottle so Mommy can sleep through a feeding = Fail
Monday night we tried again. Since I had a better idea of how much he was eating, I pumped 4 oz and put in in the fridge. I nursed him at 7 pm and went to sleep (I was tired!). Andy took care of the 9:30 feeding with the bottle and woke me around midnight to take over. This worked out very well! It’s unfortunately that I have to pump as soon as I wake up because Elijah is sleeping pretty well at night. We usually get 2.5-3 hours at time and usually in his crib. I’d prefer to spend all of that time in bed rather than pumping milk, but I really like being able to skip a feeding. I think we’re going to keep doing this.