Oh Dear!

In my last entry, I mentioned about Hariz having milk preference and would reject the bottle if he didn't like the milk. I was wrong ... well partially at least. He actually rejects the bottle and not the milk. I have not had a single success to bottle-fed him since. I've tried giving freshly express milk and that didn't work well too. He plays with the teat for awhile by rolling it in his mouth and later push it out with his tongue. Oh Dear!

What actually went wrong? I think I followed the manual to the T. Do not introduce the bottle too soon to avoid nipple confusion it says and I did just that. Hariz had his first taste of the bottle when he was 1 month old. As I remember it, he had problem latching on to it initially but quickly drink the milk once he did. After that, I gave him the bottle once every one to two weeks. No problem too. But now, as I am just about to start to work again, things started going downhill. Obviously it wasn't the case of nipple confusion. He is not confused all right. He just prefers direct feeding. Oh Dear!

I plan to start sending Hariz to the daycare starting next week although I'm not due for work for another 10 days. This is to ease the transition from mummy to the daycare. He'll be there for half a day for the 1st two days following with 2 full days on Wednesday and Thursday and I'll be taking care of him again on Friday. Well, that's the plan anyway. This is also to give my body some time to adjust to day pumping. Besides, I'm not ready yet for work. Some shopping is needed to get some office clothing as I'm suffering from wardrobe malfunction right now. My pre-pregnancy clothes are looking very tired already and I don't want to go to work in my pregnancy wear. Lucky thing our company is very relax about office attire, and jeans and t-shirts are more than suffice. So, I plan to do some shopping when Hariz is in the daycare. We've tried shopping with him before and I didn't manage to get anything really.

Anyways, I've called Pn Imah, Salsabiila Daycare owner to explain my problem with Hariz. She was very supportive and that eases off some of my worries. She recommended brown NUK teats that resemble the mother's nipple. She has also assured me if all things failed, Hariz will be given the milk via a syringe. So, yesterday, we bought more teats of different brands - MAM, Avent, NUK and Pigeon peristaltic teats. I even bought a spoon feeder which is normally used to wean a baby from the bottle. It is actually a normal feeding bottle with a spoon attached to it. There is a hole on the handle that allows for slow flow of milk from the bottle to the spoon. Yesterday was a disaster. Hariz rejected all the teats and feeding him with the spoon was just plain awkward. Most of the milk went to his shirt instead. Oh Dear!

I'm in tatters already! I'm desperate to fix this. Attempts made for the last 3 days weren't successful and nor are we making any progress. Yet. I need to relax and take this as a challenge instead of a problem. Maybe we need to resort to other ways of feeding him other than the conventional way of bottle feeding. Unfortunately, creativity is not my strongest attribute! Oh Dear!