nature nurture

the bottle saga continues, and i admit that i've also continued the practice of beating myself up over the fact that we didn't keep up with bottle feeding. i fear it was my consistent breast feeding that influenced her passion for the real deal. (my sister said, "face it, you have a nice rack!") today i shared my fears with a mom of twins, who said that she is experiencing the opposite conundrum: her twins were fed bottles from the beginning, and she didn't keep up with breast feeding because bottles were easier, and now her boys won't accept her breast. she offered that perhaps we both needed to be nicer to ourselves and stop the blame game.

she's right. but i'm so good at blaming.

today marked day one of our new and improved strategy. first i must digress and share how much my sister rocks. jewlee has been completely in charge of the bottle fight, and has been an amazing source of patience and determination. it's so hard, and yet she goes into the ring with my daughter time and time again, not without resulting tears and exhaustion. for this reason, jewlee laid down the law last night, and demanded that my husband join her in a daily and consistent bottle session each morning. she felt that siena was beginning to see her as the bad guy: as soon as i leave our house, she starts to cry.

it was different today. david and jewlee tag-teamed, switching off every 15 minutes so that a calm adult could soothe and offer the bottle in shorter intervals. after what i expect were many switch-offs, the two adults decided to take a walk and bring the offending bottle along. siena really enjoys being outside, and because of this, she relented, and emptied the bottle on a park bench.

whew.

now, this isn't a sustainable solution, but it sure is progress. both david and jewlee report that little miss no-bottle will change her ways after a week of concerted effort. fingers crossed!