On his own...

Bennett is officially eating on his own...at least for the next 2 weeks!  After he ate all of his bottles by himself on Christmas we thought it might be time to give him a shot and the nutritionist gave us the 'go ahead' on Friday.

I must admit that I thought it would be no big deal since I didn't stress too much over what he ate before, but boy was I wrong.  The first bottle I fed him after we decided to put the pump away had to be one of my most stressful moments in the past month.  I tried everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, to get him to eat.  I started with his normal formula in his normal bottle, then proceeded to Blake's formula (tastes better) in a sippy cup (he LOVES sippy cups), when he was done with that I put Blake's formula in a bottle, when that didn't work I went to my formula stock closet (I think I have 1 of every formula ever made) and got out a new formula that is vanilla flavored...it tasted great to me, similar to a vanilla slim fast.  He like it at first, but after a few sips out of the bottle he was done with it.  Then I had the bright idea to give him some on a spoon.  He would eat it off the spoon, but we still had 4 ounces left and that would have taken forever and it was messy since it was so thin.  Next, I added oatmeal to the formula to thicken it and fed the rest to him off the spoon.  He willingly ate it, but was understandably a little grouchy in the end.  All of this took place in about 20 minutes. To say the least I was a crazy woman and when Jason came out from putting Blake to bed he wondered why the kitchen had exploded.

Yesterday I stayed away and my mom and Jason fed Bennett.  He did great and was only 3 ounces short of what he had been eating.  He didn't eat all of his bottle in one sitting, he ate about every 2.5 hours, but he got it done. 

Today he has done well, not as good as yesterday, but still keeping up.  Currently he is behind 7 ounces and I'm thinking he will wake up in a hour or so for another 3 or 4 ounces, and then fingers crossed he will sleep through the night!

My little man is such a strong guy and our hope is that he can have his button out for his first birthday!  I know he can do it if I will just relax!