*NOTE: this post was written on December 13th 2015 and I have only just found it, unpublished! So I thought it fitting to publish it an entire year later, to the day. Reading it has brought back many memories and sent me into a mini panic about the fact I’m about to do it all over again! In the end she did take the bottle – we used MAM Anti-Colic Self-Sterilising ones, find them online here.

Just when we thought that the hardest part of the “expressing” process had been conquered, another obstacle was thrown in our way: getting a breastfed baby to take a bottle. I write this sat with tears running down my face and the baby screaming in the bedroom as her Dad tries for the second time today to get her to drink my hard-won expressed milk. I feel like popping my head around the door and saying to her “excuse me, do you realise how long it took me to produce that particular little bit of milky nectar?”

Tears running down my face is just a normal thing, by the way. I cry at practically anything, these days, including old people who smile and children who look sad. Listening to my baby screaming is just carte blanche for me to really go for it with the blubbering. It’s cathartic.

Anyway: I can sort of understand why an exclusively breastfed baby who is six months old might take a little persuading to accept a rubbery, not-nipple-like-at-all protrusion into her mouth. It must actually be quite a horrible surprise when all you’ve ever known is soft skin! But get used to it babycakes, because Mummy needs to get more than two hours sleep at a time otherwise her brain might go into shutdown and then where would we be?

We’ve been trying with the Medela “Calmia” teat, which is supposedly good for breastfed babies because they have to work at extracting the milk in a similar way to how they would do it at the breast – the milk doesn’t simply flow, they have to use their mouth muscles to pull it out. Sounds good, in theory, but part of me thinks I should try and make it easier for her so that she wants to do it! If it’s only one feed a day that I’m feeding expressed milk from a bottle then I can’t imagine she’ll suddenly throw her hands up and stop loving boobs. Or will she?

I also have the MAM bottle here, so I’ll let you know how I get on with that, if the Calmia doesn’t go down so well. I get the feeling we’re going to have to persevere with this bottle-feeding malarkey – maybe I should go out for a few hours and let them get on with it. Where would I go? I think I’d be nervous to be out on my own after all of this time! Would my boobs go hard and explode? Would I just constantly think about the baby? Would I CRY? Probably. I’ll keep you in the loop.

Tips in the comment box, if you would – you know how I like to read them!