The Great Bottle Experiment

We had a problem. Mr A is good at keeping a nice long gap between his feeds but on Friday we had to make the drive up to Walsall. And be there and ready by 12:45 at the very latest. After dropping off TB at school for 09:00. I know google claims that the journey should only take 2 hours 35 but that certainly doesn’t take into account the inevitable stop for the toilet (me) and caffeine (the husband), nor the morning crawl up to Wandsworth or actually finding the place. In reality, we know that the drive up to Walsall takes a good three and a half hours, not including the school run before hand so make that four at the very least.

And Mr A only tends to keep a gap of three hours between the end of his last feed and the start of the next. Add to that, when I say ‘there and ready by 12:45′, I meant there, ready, and Mr A fed so he wouldn’t kick up a fuss in the following hour.

You could say I had my work cut out for me, especially as he tends to feed for the best part of an hour at a time.

And then it occurred to me that a bottle may make that feed a hell of a lot quicker to get down. Dangerous territory, I know. I ran the idea past the mother, because I couldn’t even remember if TB had fed faster with bottles than he did with bitty and just to dampen my excitement (or more likely to ready me for the all too likely disappointment) she pointed out that Mr A may not even take a bottle. Still, it made sense to try, because if it worked, the plan could just be our saviour.

We’d got a couple of bottles that the sister had included in the diaper cake she’d made. They were shoved in the back of a drawer so as not to tempt me to give in and use them. Of course I mean go and buy a box of formula and give in and use them. Because sometimes mummy needs a night off, or a glass of wine or three. In those cases bottles are totally acceptable and in fact required. So I found the bottles, retrieved the microwave steriliser from the top of the kitchen cupboard and set everything up.

Only to encounter my first problem.

The damn thing wouldn’t even fit in our microwave, let alone turn on the table. Good job it was a hand me down and we’d not spent a small fortune on the thing. So out came the saucepan of boiling water and doing things the old fashioned way. The next problem I had with the old fashioned way was actually getting any milk out. Sure, milking the cow by hand was working but it was slow progress. Really slow. And pretty soul destroying too. After over an hour I’d only managed to get 1.5 oz of my two 4oz bottle target. So I gave up and went to bed instead, figuring the car journey the next day would be a good time to try again.

If you were one of the truckers driving along our route on Friday morning I’m sure you got a good eyeful. I tried to cover my boobs up as best I could, but it really wasn’t conducive to pumping. All I can say is, you should’ve had your eyes on the road.

We stopped early on for extra caffeine and figured we’d have to stop once more. Mr A didn’t even stir whilst we were out of the car (don’t worry, we’re not irresponsible parents – we left the brother looking after him) and when we reached our planned next stop he was still sparko so we pushed on, figuring if we really needed to stop we could always pull off the motorway and sit on the side of the road.

We reached our destination just before 12:00. Miracle of miracles. At this point I should pause to tell you that changing a baby on the back seat of an ancient Rav4 whilst his car seat is still sitting next to you is rather cramped and should not be recommended unless absolutely necessary. That said, the back seats offer very good back support whilst breastfeeding. Yes, that’s how much time we had left, that I also managed to feed him before everyone else arrived. All that effort dragging out 6 oz of milk and we didn’t even need it.

Later that evening as we stopped on our way home we decided to try the bottle. I gave Mr A half a feed first so he wouldn’t be too worked up to even try the bottle and sent the husband off in the direction of the kids area to find the motorway service station’s bottle warmer. His parting words: ‘how will I know what temperature?’ Had it really been that long since we’d last done this? Apparently so.

When he returned the contents of the bottle were steaming. No, I’m not joking. There was actually steam coming off of the milk. He’d only gone and heated the thing up in the microwave because he thought the bottle warmer wasn’t working. The only thing I could do was laugh. And assure him I’d get my revenge. At least I’d given him the smaller bottle of the two.

When we got home and it was time for Mr A’s next feed, we tried the same thing again although this time I took charge of heating the bottle. Mr A took to the bottle like a duck to water, without even batting an eyelid. The husband got to feed him for the first time and there’s nothing like snapping a pic of a proud daddy in the midst of the action.

We’ll definitely be doing bottles again, but next time I’m using a proper pump. No more milking this cow by hand.