Who's the Boss?

It's amazing how intuitive babies are. Two weeks ago, my mom was in town to visit and so I breastfed Isabel exclusively for a few days instead of giving her a bottle at least once a day. This just happened to be around the time she turned 100 days and became more aware.

Guess what, after a few days, she refused to drink from the bottle at all when we tried. Before this, she was fine with the bottle for at least 8 weeks already. This came as a big surprised and we experienced our first test of will with Isabel.

She is stubborn and can throw quite a tantrum. But as she is learning - mommy is the boss! There is no winning this battle although she fought hard.

First, I went out and bought every bottle type out there thinking maybe she outgrew the Medela bottle we have using. That didn't work!

Then we decided well since she is such a healthy baby and the doctor say she is fine without eating for 24 hours, we basically had to withhold breastfeeding and just feed her from the bottle. This took 2 days of battling with her before she gave up. First day, she cried for what seems like 90 min and we lost. After 5 hours of not eating and lots of crying, I didn't have the heart to keep going and I breastfed her.

That didn't help our cause as she probably learned that if she cries loudly and long enough, she will be breastfed. The next day, we (Agnes and I) because determined. She will not be fed unless she took the bottle. After 6.5 hours, lots of crying and fighting, she finally drank 3 oz and from the same bottle she always uses. Then an hour later, she drank 2 more oz. I guess she gave up after awhile and realize mommy is not going to give up. After that, she has been drinking at least one bottle a day and no longer fussing (as long as Agnes is the one feeding her the bottle).

Morale of the story: "I have to stand my ground even to a 3 months old, otherwise, she will always try to be the boss."

- Lei