Small victory

A large part of me wanted to never take William to daycare again, after his refusal to take a bottle from them and his 5-hour fast on Tuesday. But I decided that the longer I waited the more freaked out I would be about ever leaving him again. So after he got up and ate this morning, I decided to head over there.

To my surprise, everyone was still nice and happy to see me when I walked in. I'd been kind of afraid that William had cried/screamed the entire time he was there on Tuesday and that they would all run and hide the next time we showed our faces. But they assured me he had not cried too much on Tuesday, he'd just refused the bottle even though it was obvious he was very hungry.

I asked them if they had any tips or advice on what we should do to get him to take a bottle from them. They told me we could try right then, while I was still there, and we'd see if we could find something that would work. So, I handed my baby and a bottle of breastmilk to Ms. V, and she sat with him in a rocking chair and tried to get him to eat. He did the same thing he had done on Tuesday, apparently. No crying, just moving his head out of the way and absolutely refusing the bottle. My heart sank. How would I ever be able to leave him for more than a couple of hours if he wouldn't take a bottle? It was kind of ironic: I fought so hard to be able to breastfeed, and now that we'd managed to pull it off, the boy would accept no substitutes!

Ms. V was so patient. I suggested that maybe the bottle wasn't warm enough, and she agreed that it might help if we heated it up some more. So she warmed up the bottle and tried again. This time, she sat Will up in her lap, facing outward. She thought that maybe holding him in a more "cradled" position, like when he breastfeeds, was confusing to him because it made him expect a boob instead of a bottle. This time, with warm milk and facing outward, she got the bottle nipple in his mouth and he did not fuss. He took a tentative swig. He must have thought it tasted pretty good, so he took another. And another! He slurped it down! Everyone cheered, the nursery staff as much as I did.

I hadn't intended on leaving him for long today at the nursery; I basically just wanted to see if we could resolve the bottle issue. I only had about an hour left before pick up time (the nursery closes at noon), so not enough time to go home/to campus and get any work done on revising my dissertation. So what did I do? I left and ran 4 miles :)

When I came back to pick him up, he was sleeping in a swing, and they said he had been such a good and sweet baby the whole time. They said they were really proud of him for taking the bottle today, and so was I! He woke up when I loaded him up to take him home, but he fell asleep again in the car and stayed asleep long enough for me to shower when we got home. He was pretty good for the rest of the day and even took another nap this afternoon, which allowed me to do some revisions on my dissertation. Maybe I'll write a post someday about how sick of my dissertation I am and how I no longer accept Professor Pablo as my cloth mother after reading his ridiculously extensive comments and suggestions. Or maybe I can sum it up by just saying this: I would like to put my dissertation in a box and throw the box into the sea and then hurl the sea into outerspace.

Despite the dozen or so job applications I've got out there, I would have to say I am not currently pursuing a career in academia. Maybe I'll wait until Will is in school and then become a doula. Got to go, floors to scrub and laundry to fold and milk to pump. Thanks for reading.