5 Secrets to Breast Pump Success

You might actually be the first person to get Baby to take a bottle.

When my older daughter, Charlotte, was born, we paid close attention to all the recommendations about how to introduce a bottle to a breast-fed baby. Rule No. 1: Make sure that Mommy is somewhere far away, because Baby will turn up her nose at a bottle if the original café is around. And so one day, once breast-feeding was well-established, I waited until she was starting to get hungry—but not too hungry—and pumped some milk in the other room. Then I sneaked out, leaving a nice warm bottle on the kitchen table for my husband to give her.

It was a complete and abysmal failure. Tears would be shed—and not only Charlotte's, either. My husband tried several times, on several days, over several weeks, to get her to take a bottle. My sister tried. The neighbor tried. Then one day I put Charlotte in the sling and went out for a walk, and on a whim grabbed the bottle my husband had been trying to give her. She loved to nurse in the sling, so once she was outside and relaxed, I stuck the bottle in her mouth. Before I knew it, she'd sucked down the entire thing. We had a similar experience with Leah, my younger daughter. My theory is that both girls were used to my being around at feeding time, so they ate. Maybe I was more relaxed about it, too. After all, I had two secret weapons as backup—underneath my shirt.