How I got my youngest child to eat from a bottle when the boob wasn't around.

I was recently asked if I had any advice on how to get a 5 month old to drink breast milk from a bottle so that mom could get some time to take care of a few things on occasion.  Fair question. Fortunantly as a dad I have had to exculsivly rely on bottle feedings. My wife is a weekend nurse and works 12 hour shifts, which really means shes gone for about 14 hours a day two days in a row, so bottle feeding are essential for my kiddos.

Now in truth if i had been asked for advice on this with my girls, I wouldn't really have any. My girls took bottles lie champs with ZERO transition issues. It was great! So I was a bit surprised at the initial difficulty of feeding my son via bottle. It took about 3 weeks to really get the hang of it but it would have been much quicker if I had gotten the advice I am about to give.

You would sure think that food is food and if a baby gets hungry that it will eat just for the sake of eating. Well..... not so much. I could not for the life of me get my boy to take a bottle the first weekend my wife was back to work postpartum. My first thought was that maybe he wasn't actually hungry. After going through the "rounds" if you make, you know, diaper change, bouncing, burping attempt, trying to get farts out and carried in the Ergo to induce napping, it became clear that he was hungry and he was not gonna eat from the bottle.

In a bit of a panic at this point, I grabbed another bottle (a Soothie bottle, I was using a Medela) poured the milk in heated it up a bit more and lo and behold he took it. In my mind I figured he must of taken it because he liked the nipple better. Over the rest of the weekend we struggled with the Soothie bottle but got enough food down to keep him fed, but it was by no means easy.

Convinced to have a better weekend next time I started to really watch what he responded well to and what didn't make a difference. Here's the list of things he liked and changed his attitude towards gladly accepting the bottle in order of importance.

1 Heat
2 Skin Contact
3 Nipple Firmness

By far the most important thing to get him to take his boobie juice willingly the temp needed to be right. Now your body temp is right around 97 F so you would think this is sufficient temp to keep them happy but not for this guy. My wife would fresh express and leave me with a bottle to use immediately and he would bauk at it every time. If however I would take the fresh milk and warm it just a bit he downed it all right away. I have found that the optimal temp for my fussy guy to take his bottle with ease is between 115 F and 120 F. Now you don't want to have to stick a thermometer in a bottle every time so here's a nice little tip to use. Tap the nipple on the bottom of your wrist. It should be almost hot but induce absolutely  no pain at all. If you feel any sting period, it is too hot and you should either let it cool by standing or run the bottle under some cold water while swirling (Not Shaking. Never Shake Breast milk) the bottle. Test again until it temp properly. Also if the baby flinches at all when first taking the bottle it is still to hot and you should continue to cool it down. This one thing usually does the trick for getting him to eat though.

Next is skin contact. This sounds a bit odd especially if you're leaving your kiddo with someone whose not particularly close to your family. Let me explain. A baby who is exclusively breastfed is used to having their face jammed against a decent amount of skin while eating, so when they transition to a bottle you can imagine that a rubber nipple just doesn't really compare. Have you ever noticed though that babies love to eat your fingers and knuckles? Why do they do that? Skin contact. As the daddy in this scenario it would be perfectly acceptable to use this to my advantage when feeding him but the way i'm gonna explain should be acceptable for nearly anyone who you would trust to feed your kiddo to use. The nipple of the bottle is not suffiecnt contact but by taking and wrapping your fingers around the base of the nipple you can create a ring of skin to make contact with the little ones face and create that skin to skin sensation that they've come to expect when eating. Check out these pictures to get a better idea of what I mean.

Lastly, nipple firmness. Both my son and my niece seem to do better with a nipple that is not very firm. Typically momma nipples are not very firm while baby is eating and the baby can mold the nipple to the inside of their mouths while eating. If you use a very firm nipple this malleability is greatly reduced. Above I had said that the soothie bottle worked for my son at first. Well he quickly changed his tone when we applied the first two tips and he started to actually eat. We found that he liked the Medela nipples more because they were softer and he could push the nipple tip inward with his tongue and make it pop in and out while he suckles. See the picture to better understand the nipple being pushed inward.


After the second weekend together of bottle feeding with my boy, we were practically champs and at nearly 6 months now I know what works for him and he is a happy bottle eater.

Every kid is gonna be different but I have had similar issues with my niece who is the same age as my son and have had similar success with bottle feeding. Hope this all helps and please leave your own feedback and advice to help this momma.

Ditch the Pancake Mix and DIY in 3 Minutes!

So I want to preface this recipe with the fact that the person who I've personally seen eat more pancakes than anybody else in my life, my sister, gave it the nod of approval by grabbing another from the stack.

I own a Managing Company that owns and operates a handful of restaurants, so family dinners can be quite tough to manage some days. As a result breakfast has become our family sit down meal in our household. The one thing the kids constantly ask for is pancakes and with this recipe I gladly oblige due to its ease and lack of dishes.<< Mostly that.

There was a time when we would purchase the big bag of mix and add egg, milk and oil and be on our merry way, but many years ago when we moved to eating a far less processed diet I started working on this organic homemade recipe and I'm excited to finally share.

I'm going to separate the wet and dry mix recipes so if you want you can pre-mix or bulk mix the dry ahead of time. I will also put an idea for pre-mixing at the end.

Prep Time: 3 Minutes
Cook Time: 5 Minutes

Ingredients: (10-12 pancakes)
 
-Dry Mix
1C   Unbleached All Purpose Flour
1tsp Baking Powder
3/4tsp Baking Soda
3Tbs Unrefined Sugar
3/4tsp Pink Himalayan Salt

-Wet Mix
3/4C Almond Milk
1 Egg
2Tbs White Vinegar (Trust me on this one. It's key and every review of my pancakes is better when I add it)
2Tbs Butter Melted

If anyone is interested in the vegan version let me know and I will post it for you. It's great as well but my family really loves butter.

Directions: 



-Mix all dry ingredients together with a whisk or fork. (A whisk does a better job of aeration and mixing)
-Heat your skillet to about 350 F




-Melt your butter in a separate dish.
-Mix all wet ingredients with a whisk making sure the egg is well beaten and the mix is nice and frothy.



-Slowly pour and whisk the DRY ingredients into the Wet ingredients until the mixture is smooth.
(Always pour dry into wet. It prevents clumps and unmixed product from sticking to the bowl.)
Let the mixture sit  for about a minute to allow the baking soda and vinegar to create carbon dioxide. This makes for nice fluffy pancakes.

-I like slightly crispy edges on my pancakes so I melt a little bit of Coconut oil on my skillet and let it get hot while I wait.
-Pour the pancake mixture onto the hot skillet and wait until the pancakes begin to bubble on the top before flipping them. (About 2.5 minutes)


-Flip the pancakes and butter the tops while the bottoms cook.
-Remove the pancakes from the skillet and serve. Easy Right? As they should be.


Pre-Mixing:





-For bulk mixing use 1 1/2C loosely measured dry mix for each batch you wish to make.
-Something I like to do for pre-mixing is use a 1 pint Ball Mason Jar. It fits one batch perfectly and they stack great in the cabinet for easy access.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy these and never ever find yourself buying a premix again.

I think it's finally time to talk about Miscarriage.

MISCARRIAGE! Damn. That's a scary word. But what's the reality? Well an estimated 1 in 5 "known" pregnancies will end in a lost baby before the 20th week. Actually it's most likely much higher than that due to it happening often before the pregnancy becomes known to the mother. The fact of early miscarriage is no more obvious than to those of us who have been through it while actively pursuing having kids of our own.

Being in my late 20's and having 3 children with my wife, the experience of miscarriage hit us relatively early in life, in our early 20s. But being in the age group we are, we're starting to see it happen to those around us. In the past few weeks I have had 2 sets of friends who have been thrown into the dizzying spiral of losing a baby. It's so heart breaking to see close friends go through something so devastating. It happens and it hurts, a lot. It has also shed light on another unspoken truth. These are just the friends who have had the courage to make it known to the world or at least their inner circles. One thing though that I have found to be a very dark truth surrounding this subject is that, no matter if you are brave like a few of my friends have been or decide to keep it concealed as my wife and I did, there is undoubtedly an ultimate feeling of shame and responsibility in the aftermath of experiencing it firsthand.

Why though? How in the hell is that fair? Rarely is it ever the fault of a mother, that her little one did not develop properly and was not able to survive the same miraculous transformation that you did, into a vessel suitable to sustain life as a human. Why can't parents go through the grieving process without feeling responsible and or shameful? Some would say it's because they are looking for answers to a question without any. Being realistic, most people will never know the specific reason behind a miscarriage. Doctors will speculate to help you rationalize it. Moms might search deep within their own memory banks and harshly judge each and every action and decision that she made while pregnant. And friends, if they are made aware of the pregnancy, may come up with their own versions of what could have happened to try to bring comfort to their friend. Still none of these are ever absolute and a grieving mom and possibly dad, deep down, know that. I however have a different vein of thought as to why the tunnel of thoughts surrounding miscarriage are so densely lined with self contempt. 

WE DON'T TALK ABOUT IT.

Seriously, we don't. And in the rare occurrences that we do, it's done in the shadows of secrecy. Here's something to chew on. The percentage of known pregnancies that end miscarriage is the same as the percentage of people who will die from cancer. It's the same as the percentage of the American children who live in poverty. Yet there is a drastic difference in that we do not hide these facts. We know them and we dedicate time and resources to them in order to assist those affected. We talk about them. We walk around tracks in pink and come up with ridiculous team names to make them known. Can the same be said of those affected by miscarriage? Now I'm by no means advocating these other issues are undeserving of our attention, I am simply pointing to the fact that we are sweeping under the rug a largely underrepresented number of people and allowing them to believe that they are alone in a very difficult and vulnerable time in their lives.

Now everything I'm saying is essentially just bitching at this point and I do not want to just complain about an issue and not add to the solution. So I'm going to address a number of ways that I think can help both internally and externally create a solid support and understanding towards those affected (especially as men). I will also outline something which I believe we can help shift the undertone of shame away from grieving parents and allow us to create a culture of support to make it "ok" for parents to reach out without hesitation or embarrassment by opening up the dialog for talking about it.

It starts with compassion.

Internally in the relationship men will be affected differently than women.

I need to first address the guys side as it is most relevant to me but it is good for women to know how we think. Guys process information in a way that starts with; hearing a situation happens. assessing the details and seriousness of the situation, deciding how relevant it is to them and if it is, immediately the cogs begin to turn to rationalize or resolve the situation. This works great as a man, to be able to rationalize something at tragic as a miscarriage and hold strong in our minds to that rationale. We are able to function and focus on the details of the days after because, to us there is absolute truth in it. It's not that we aren't saddened, instead it's that that is how we process everything every day. We don't know any other way and unfortunately the thing that gets us through it just about the worst possible means of helping our partners throughout the entire grieving process.   

As men we tend to miss a very important detail in our assessment of miscarriage. For some reason, and I still haven't been able to put my finger on it, we think that our partners are able to go through the same rationalization process as us. And without realizing it we tend to go straight to trying to lead them to our rationale. I mean it does make sense right? If it worked for us why can't it work for them? If you are a guy whose going through this please listen carefully. I promise with every ounce of being in me that it is not the same for women. Stop. Stop because it's not only not what they need but, it will NEVER EVER work.

Women have a completely different emotional attachment that we can't fully grasp, but I will try to explain it in a way that might be easier to understand. When a woman finds out she is pregnant, intentionally or not, she instantly changes. She is no longer herself. She is a we. In fact you should repeat that last sentence out loud to yourself a few times. She is a we. We can't as guys understand it fully because we will never be a we. And we will never spend a day not being able to break the river of thought that another being is inside of us growing, completely and wholey dependent on us for life. In order for us to understand to our capacity though we need to remember something very important. Men usually take a while to fully come to terms with the idea of the baby being real. Really in there. For women though that feeling of we is very real and very permanent as soon as it happens and that thought does not leave them. They are moms and their baby is all consuming to them. It's actually the thing that makes a miscarriage so emotionally devastating to them. I say all of this to bring it around to a point for men to get. When we try to rationalize a miscarriage we unintentionally put off a feeling that we think somehow it somehow wasn't real. That that woman wasn't and isn't a mother.

So what can we do instead? Well,  honestly it's a very simple but immensely difficult answer. Ready?

Shut up and be there! Don't try to provide answers. You don't have any because for her there are none. So sit with her, cry with her, listen to her, assure her you are not going anywhere until she is ready. She's just lost someone very important to her and she needs you to be there because you're the closest thing she has to someone who should understand. It is a very slow grieving and healing process that you cannot speed up no matter what so prepare yourself to be there for a while.

Something that often gets overlooked by men as well is that if you received the news that you have miscarried during an ultrasound, your partner has a solid chance of needing to have the baby surgically taken from her. So while she is grieving from the loss she is also dealing with that fact that her baby is still in her. As men we must be additionally sympathetic to these mothers and not take personal any actions or words that come from them. This is again something you cannot possibly understand.

I want to stomp out a common misnomer that its somehow better if you already have kids. Coming personally from a scenario where we experienced multiple miscarriages in between our oldest and middle child I can assure you it is not better. If anything its harder. The emotions are the same but now the grieving process is harder because you have a little one to attend to. It actually slows the healing because it takes longer to have ample time to do so.

If we are to change the culture of shame surrounding miscarriage we cannot pretend that we are "ok" simply for the purpose of making face to our family and friends. I truly believe that people are kinder and more sympathetic than we give credit to. Inevitably though, even if we do present our raw emotions to them, someone will not know how to react. They will fall into the same rut that I've been describing above. It is important for us to forgive them and not hold them responsible. As they become more educated and as the culture of understanding changes they will learn. Another reason we cannot continue to hide  that this happens is that you will have someone in your life who goes through this as well and in that moment when they are looking for support they will remember. They will gravitate to where they believe understanding lies. You will be the start of the web of support and it will grow.

It is often said that it takes a village to raise a child and I believe that to be very true but I also believe it to be just as true that it takes that same village to help us grieve when we lose one. From partners to family member. From friends to employers. Be the start of your village. Be the start of the answer to banishing the hidden secret that so many people live with and try to deal with themselves. Be there!