Stumbling block

Looking elegant in her little black dress, along with a big bow to match her big personality 😉

"Whoa", says Belle as she looks up to the sky.

We spent a good amount of time in our backyard today. It was our feeble attempt at squeezing out the last little bit of summer. On Tuesday the kids are heading back to school, and soon the warmth will be replaced by a cool breeze. The nights are already pretty cold. Welcome to September in Toronto 😊

Soak it in Belle. Who knows how many more times we can come out like this. Mom and dad can only bundle you in so many layers!

Dad trying out his new baby carrier that mom purchased a few days ago. Great gift mom! Arabella likes being up and looking around from up high, so this might make life a lot easier. Just strap in, click, and go!

The real question is...where are we going? Arabella's a bubble baby, remember? She's staying put!

We had a jam-packed day of outdoors and activities. By the end of the day all three of us were napping together in the living room. Zzzzz...

We have a ton of fun together. It's pretty obvious, isn't it? But I'll be honest with you guys, there's still some work to do. And one of the issues we're dealing with right now is bottle feeding.

Arabella doesn't seem to want her bottle lately. She's developed an aversion over the last few weeks and we're almost exclusively feeding her via the tube. It has gone from bad to worse.

Past feedings have taught her that feeding is somehow unpleasant, stressful or painful. We've spoken to a few occupational therapists in the past, so we're aware of most things to look out for. There could be many reasons why a baby has an aversion - tiredness, nausea, distractibility, feeding techniques, equipment, constipation, the list goes on. 

And if you think about it, Arabella is force-fed every 3 hours. We are in fact forcing her, right? It doesn't matter how she feels or how hungry she is...that food is coming down eventually. Bottle or no bottle. And she's gotten used to it, too. 

We've tried delaying her feed countless times (to see if she would be hungry enough for the bottle) but the results are still the same. There are no consequences to avoiding the bottle. Belle will never go hungry because she needs the calories, and we're all used to the gravity bag way of feeding her. 

And the cycle continues...

So how to we break through? We're interested to see what the feeding clinic will do for Arabella in a few weeks. Hopefully this is a momentary issue, and we have no reason to worry! We would love to see her enjoy a full bottle again!