Bottle feeding a breastfed baby

I feel lucky... lucky that my 3rd baby took the bottle easier than the first 2.

My first son did not like the bottle. I purchased so many different types of bottles that claim it's the closest to a mom's breast, etc. I had a supply issue so even when I supplemented, I used the SNS system. A lot of people have never heard of it. I only knew what it was because they recommended it. It's made by Medela. It's basically a bottle clipped to your shirt/bra (whatever) that has a thin tube taped to your nipple (yes! I said nipple). When baby nurses, baby also draws milk from the bottle through the tube. I recall having raw skin from all the taping. Wow, I do not miss that thing.

Anyway, I returned to work after 3 months. My baby refused the milk all day. If my mom got lucky, she could get him to drink some while rocking him in the bouncer chair. Most days, he'd refuse and waited until I got home. I would nurse just about every hour through the night. I started co-sleeping because I just couldn't deal with with working all day and having to get up every hour to go  to his room to nurse. 

With my 2nd baby, I tried to introduce the bottle before I went back to work. I did this weekly and it was such a battle. He was more willing to take it with me than daddy (which is opposite of whatever everyone else says...) but it was still a battle. He was a little better than my first once I went back to work full time. I stayed home for 3 months and then another 3 months part time.

With my 3rd baby, I didn't even try to introduce the bottle. He was born 6 weeks early and I wanted to spend my time off bonding and cuddling with my little baby. I didn't want to battle with bottles weekly. He took the pacifier early on. My first 2 would not take the pacifier. They were that picky. I was their pacifier! Anyway, I had several pacifiers and bought a few more for him to try... He seemed to really like the MAM brand. I'm not promoting this product or anything but I took some photos because I ended up buying so many of these just in case they go missing! I want to remember these moments...

They come in these little plastic containers. I feel so silly for not knowing that you can sterilized the pacifiers in the containers. One day I was looking at the container & saw numbers and other things printed on it. It then all started to come to me (doh). I got so excited about my new discovery haha. It's the little things that sometimes makes me so giddy! haha

I tried offering him other pacifiers but he knows it's not the MAM ones. So, as I prepared for returning to work after 4 months, I decided to see if they had MAM bottles. A quick search online and I found some at Walmart & Target. It's not too popular over here. I ordered a set from Target. In the meantime, I gave the babysitter the old bottles we used for the other boys. For that week that he was using it (because I was waiting for my order to arrive), he didn't take it so well. They had to spoon feed him the breast milk. The bottles came in that weekend and I gave it to the babysitter that next week. The result was that he loved the bottle. He took it with no issues! I don't know what it is about picky little babies, but I'm glad I found something that worked! I figured he'd like it since he's so particular about the pacifier. The nipple on the bottle is shaped like the pacifiers (kinda flat)....Yay!