Tag Archives: bottle

Do Babies Yo-Yo Diet? Or Maybe It’s the Highchair.

I’m convinced Avery, and probably a lot of other babies are all aware of yo-yo dieting! Maybe babies were the ones that actually started the whole fad diet! Most likely (and realistically) not, but maybe…

As defined by Dictionary.com:

yo-yo dieting

noun

a repeated cycle of weight loss followed by weight gain.

 

How often do you and others around you make a comment about baby’s chubby legs, Michelin Man arms, or fat cheeks? I know Going Mom and I are guilty of saying something like this about Avery every day. To us, it’s cute, but to them, weeeelllllll maybe they are really concerned about their figure.

In being so concerned about their “chubby” figure, I think that’s why babies refuse the bottle, real food put in front of them, and sometimes even the boob. One day they will be eating like champs, but the next day you’re lucky just to get them to eat anything! Uh oh, did you mention something about their giant cheeks some time in between?

Okay, again, this sounds pretty farfetched, but doesn’t it feel that way sometimes?

Avery has days where she’ll happily and easily accept the bottle from me and we’re all good. Then, other days, she’ll start out fine for like a minute, and then push out with her tongue and turn her head side to side. I eventually get the message and reluctantly give up.

Oh sure, she's interested in THAT bottle!
Oh sure, she’s interested in THAT bottle!

Just the other week she was tearing through herbottles to where everything Going Mom left for us in the fridge was gone. I was feeling pretty proud of myself and I was even happy to get up early in the morning when she was crying for food.

Kelley is an awesome mom and gets up in the wee hours to feed Avery even though she has to go to work. On occasion, I will go to feed Avery a bottle instead so Kelley can get a little more rest, and it can be a hassle. Trying to feed a squirmy baby with a bottle in the dark is hard, but when they refuse the thing, it’s down right impossible!

So, that was last week and we had gotten used to thinking she’s going to be eating more from here on out. Rookie parents here, checking in! Avery is now back on her bottle boycott and we fight to the last ounce just like times before.

All of this fluctuation in eating is apparently a normal baby thing, but I’m holding out and saying there’s a .000328% chance that babies know about and practice yo-yo dieting.

Which brings me to my other speculation about babies and eating; introducing solids. We recently started to introduce Avery to solid foods through baby-led weaning with zero success so far. The first day we blamed it on her being too tired and fussy, but the second try she was awake and was happy. Then we put her in the highchair.

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If you look close enough, I think you can see two horns starting to poke out of her forehead.

We’ve tried a few times since then all with no luck. Being the college-educated parents that we are, we knew it couldn’t be the food that’s making her mad, so it must be the highchair. Deductive reasoning at its finest!

With our revelation, we tried offering food with her in the best baby seat in the house hoping for better results. I even showed her how fun and exciting a green bean can be!

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She wasn’t buying it. I mean, c’mon, doesn’t it look exciting? No? So maybe she just doesn’t like green; I’ll try a pretty carrot!

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Crap, we’re running out of things to blame it on other than that she’s a baby and doing anything new takes time…….and A LOT of patience!

Although we really don’t like the highchair we have, I guess we’ll stop making up reasons why Avery isn’t immediately taking to new food. So we’ll have patience and keep on trying, and as some of you have commented, maybe I’ll give in and offer something sweeter. 🙂

But seriously, we are thinking about returning our Chicco Polly highchair to get something else. The tray is just annoying at how it slides off, and on and the crotch strap under the tray catches Avery’s feet when we try to slide it on.

What kind of highchair do/did you use? Please let us know what worked for you as maybe it will at least help Avery figure out this new way of eating!

This post is part of the Love All Dads Link-up where other awesome dads link their favorite posts from the week. Check out all of the fun other posts by clicking on the button below:

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Bottle vs Boob

If you’re reading this post to see which one reigns supreme, here’s a spoiler, it’s the boob! The boob will always win over the bottle, no contest. Hell, without the boob, there would just be an empty bottle.

Yes, of course there’s formula, but since the ideal food source would be boob, I am not taking formula into account. For anyone who does formula feed, I’m not attacking you at all, so please take no offense. We feel very lucky that Avery is able to and willingly accepts breast milk, and I understand that’s not the case for all babies.

Boob vs Bottle (Medium)

An issue Kelley and I have had disagreements with (she is going to hate that I’m blogging about this; sorry Kelley, I love you!) is how I feed Avery. In the mornings when we first wake up and Kelley is getting ready for work, I will start the first bottle of the day. Some mornings Avery is more fussy than others, but it always seems she is stubborn about taking the bottle.

Admittedly, I do try to get her to take it for too long which just makes her more fussy, or my position is wrong. Kelley has lectured me on this, and I am more accepting when Avery won’t take the bottle, I just give it a break. If Avery continues to be fussy, Kelley will get on to me thinking I’m still trying to get her to take the bottle, but that’s not it, she’s just fussy then.

Kelley will then say that she’ll feed her directly from the source, but I know she really needs to get ready for work. Anyway, after we go back and forth, Kelley will head to work and then I’ll try the bottle again.

Guess what? Avery is way more accepting of the bottle without mom around. I’m pretty confident that when mom is home, Avery knows she could have better than some plastic bottle with a fake rubber nipple; she wants the real thing! So, as we already know, the boob wins against the bottle hands down, but the bottle is also very necessary for us guys.

As a SAHD, I’m useless if I’m not armed with bottles to feed Avery, and I depend on the boob to reload those bottles every day.

Here are a few pros and cons to further prove the boob’s #1 status:

Bottle

  • Convenient and portable
  • Allows others to feed and give mom a break
  • Gets the healthy fat stuck on the side
  • Have to be cleaned afterward
  • Costs money
  • Not a boob

Boob

  • Convenient and portable
  • Nothing to clean once done feeding
  • Free source of the best stuff
  • No fat stuck on the side
  • Dad (or anyone else) can’t use to feed baby
  • Babies eventually get teeth

Obviously the boob is the preferred choice, and yes Kelley, I bow down to you and the almighty boob. I don’t want to argue about anymore and I no longer try to make Avery take the bottle if she is being unruly. I just give her a break and try again later. But I swear, she will chug the thing in one sitting when we’re alone!

Any other couples have this issue? How do you both come to terms on feeding?