Bottle Strike 2011

Well, Walker now officially has a mind of his own.  We have had our first hurdle in baby land.  He has decided that he only wants to be nursed these days.  I had been giving Walker one bottle every week since he was a month old.  He has always been great with them...except he liked to drink them too fast which would make his reflux worse.  However, two weeks ago he was with his babysitter and refused his bottle.  I tried again at home with him that night and he still refused.  I then had Marcus try and my parents try later that week, but no luck.  I was really pushing for Walker to take the bottle because I had a trip planned with Marcus to go to Kansas City Thursday.  That gave me a little over a week to get this bottle thing back on track. 

He continued to refuse various bottles and nipple sizes, various sippy cups (with and without valve), and even spoon feeding it (I was getting desperate).  The only way he would actually swallow any milk was from a medicine dropper. 

My dad tried to distract him by having him splash water

Loving the dropper, and actually swallowing each .4ml

Even though this worked, it would take hours to get a full feeding in.  Needless to say, I was not able to go to Kansas City.  However, Walker and I got to hang out at the lake and play with lots of fun women that were in town hanging out with my mom.  We ended up having a lot of fun.  I was really nervous about leaving him for 24 hours anyway, so this just made it easier to decide not to go.

I have been reading and researching (as per usual) about different strategies to take.  If he keeps refusing, I think I might just have to let him get hungry enough...but I will have to be far away because I am a softy and will give in if he cries too much.  Luckily, I am home with him and able to feed him every 3-4 hours so we aren't too worried.  When he does go to the sitter it is not for more than 4 hours and we will continue to try the bottles here. 

Through all of this I have started to wonder if he is ready for solid foods.  I had planned on waiting until 6 months to help with decrease the risk of food allergies and also because of convenience.  However, he is always watching what I am eating and loves to chew on things (teething).  When we did the spoon and milk he would dive towards the spoon excitedly and loved eating off of it, even though he would not swallow the milk (He makes this face like it is disgusting even though I have just pumped it, crazy kid).  For now I am going to try and make it to 5 months and then see if we might start solids then. 

Any advice on this bottle situation is much appreciated :)