Bottles...

Well, our darling daughter has already made her first "informed" decision, at 2 months old. She has concluded that she prefers eating from a bottle. I can only assume she came to this decision because it is a lot less work to have dinner from a bottle than straight from mommy.

I am a little disappointed by this turn of events but dealing with it. We still try nursing a few times a day, usually earlier vs. later. Once I am up for the day I have a goal of pumping every 3 to 4 hours, so that is why morning nursing works best for us to attempt (later on she is getting hungry at times when I have just pumped about an hour earlier, therefore I won't have much for her, which does not help our nursing issues). She nurses pretty well overnight, usually, as well as her first feeding or two of the day. After that she gets bottles and I sometimes try nursing her in the evening, before bedtime, and sometimes it works.
Like I said, I am a bit disappointed in this outcome, but I am not ready to give up feeding her breastmilk. Pumping all day is a PAIN, let me tell you! Not only am I spending time feeding her, but then I also have to spend additional time pumping every few hours to keep my supply up! We also continue to supplement her with formula (anywhere from 2-6 or 7 ounces a day, depending on her appetite and what I can pump).

Some babies just prefer the bottle, but I am not convinced that is solely why this happened because she nursed so well in the begininng! I am afraid that we introduced her to a bottle a little early, due to pressures, one of which was the fact that I needed to get back to work :( Since I was off almost 2 weeks prior to her birth, waiting for her to arrive, by the time she was a month old I had missed 6 weeks already! My work definately would have let me stay gone longer, but we needed me to be back, even if it is only 15-20 hours a week.

So, in conclusion, I am going to do my best to continue feeding her breastmilk as long as possible, so she can get the benefits from it as long as possible. Before I had planned on doing it up to around a year, but now I have changed my goal to 6 months and we will see what happens from there. I need to be realistic. Pumping almost exclusively is a LOT of work and I already have a pretty full plate, not to mention I start back at school on May 26th. I am going all summer, 4 days a week for first summer session and only 2 days a week for second and third session. Things are about to get a little crazier around here...