As a person devoted to a simple, frugal life. I have learned a hard, hard lesson this week. Sometimes less is not more. Holly's bottle, called the Medela Special Needs Feeder or The Haberman, is quite expensive. We receive two of these each time we visit our plastic surgeon, but I quickly realized we needed a few more.
5 ought to do the trick. Since we were new to the bottles, and Holly was recovering from a milk allergy/lactose intolerance, the initial weeks on with the new bottles did not register as difficult.
Four weeks later when the nipples began to tear, and we switched all at once to 5 more new bottles, it registered! Holly went from drinking 4-5 ounces in about 20 minutes every 4-5 hours and sleeping about 6 hours at night, to 2-3 ounces over an hour every 3-4 hours. Aack!
Every one needs a plan! And this may require obsessive compulsive levels of organization. But I am certain I am up to the task. If you are just starting out on the Haberman, or plan to, please consider this approach:
1. Begin on Day 1 with a new nipple and valve, use this for 2 days straight.
2. On Day 3 early in the morning begin again with next new nipple for 2 days.
3. Do this 7 times. This will take 2 weeks to break in 7 nipples.
4. At the end of the two weeks, begin rotating the nipples for every bottle.
5. Week 3, Day 1. Choose a time that is convienient for you, either early to mid morning or early afternoon. At that feeding every day for a week, use a new nipple. This bottle will take longer than the others. You do not want to introduce a new nipple at night!
6. At the end of the week, move this nipple in with the others for regular use and begin with another new nipple, at once feeding every day for a week.
My deep hope is that in this way, Holly and I will never go "cold turkey" again with new bottle nipples. Always have some "broken in" before all "break"!
Pictures of this system will follow soon!
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