Ethan and his amazing bottle!

Ethan was 5 months last Wednesday and today I FINALLY had him in for his 4 month well child check. (Don't you just love insurance?) With the exception of a nasty cold he caught from his sisters that has resulted in a double ear infection - which Natalie INSISTS is b/c HE wouldn't stop touching HER - oh, and some pesky eczema he's totally healthy. :)

The doctor pronounced him in overall good health and he weighed in at a hefty 17lbs 9oz and is 27 inches which puts his in the 75th and 88th percentile for his age.

One thing I've been meaning to blog about for a while is this AMAZING bottle that I have found and love. Someone at church had it and when I found out about it I had to have one. Ethan is a bottle fed baby, we never did get nursing to work and he always seems to need a bottle when I am taking Isabella to or picking her up from school. This makes it so I either have to get him up even earlier from his nap or listen to a screaming baby the entire ride. Neither of which is preferable.

So, the answer? This bottle. I call it "the straw bottle" and what it does is makes it so you can feed your baby without holding him. He just sucks on the nipple/pacifier which is attached to a straw that goes down into the bottle and the bottle just needs to be sitting upright next to the baby. Its perfect for the car. It was made for travel or babies with reflux or to prevent ear infections (guess this function didn't work for us) - and I have found it is perfect for a busy mom.

When I bought it I told myself I'd only use it in the car, and truthfully it took until he was just about 4 months to be able to use it completely on his own. But in the past few weeks I have felt so frazzled by all I have to do in a day and the fact that it takes Ethan sometimes up to 45 minutes to eat a bottle was not helping. Since he drinks 4 bottles a day that was almost 4 hours of my day spent sitting and feeding him a bottle when I have 2 other kids that inevitably need something during those feeding times - mostly the two middle of the day ones. So, I finally gave myself permission. I am allowing myself to use the straw bottle during the day so that I can make lunch for the girls without having to try and feed Ethan a bottle at the same time (which truthfully sometimes I had Bella feed him while I made lunch then I'd take over while she ate), and so I can get dinner started without again trying to feed him. Maybe others will think bad of me for not stopping and feeding my child, but the clock isn't stopping so it makes it so hard for me to stop. And I do sit down and snuggle and feed his first and last bottle during the day. Who could resist snuggling with such a cute, squishy and cuddly little guy?

If anyone is interested I found the bottle at babies r us.