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Wednesday April 5, 2006 | by Dalia Griffith | 3 comments

I’m suddenly having a feeding issue with Jackson, so if there are any parents—or people who aren’t parents but have more common sense than me—out there who might have either encountered this, or just have an idea of how to overcome it, I’m begging you to post a comment.

OK, here’s the deal: we recently upgraded Jack from a “slow flow” nipple to a “medium flow” because the former had started to frustrate him (and us) to no end. There simply wasn’t enough liquid coming out, so he would suck himself either to sleep or into a rage long before he’d had enough to eat. So despite the “rule” saying that medium flow nipples are for five months and up, we gave them a shot and found they worked like a dream. Suddenly, he was drinking up to four ounces at a time, sleeping longer between feedings at night (which helped me feel a little more human the next day), and oddly enough, he wasn’t dribbling nearly as much food down his chin.

But suddenly, and without warning, things turned ugly. And it all started with this new 8 ounce bottle I offered (filled with five ounces of formula). After only a few gulps, Jack was spilling all over the place, thrashing around, and shortly thereafter, screaming bloody murder. At that point, I just assumed it was the nipple the bottle came with (which was also medium flow), so I just swapped it out for one of the tried and true nipples we’d been using so successfully up until that very morning. But it didn’t make any difference at that point—Jack thrashed, spit and fussed his way through every feeding last night, and only managed about an ounce at a time before nodding off, or as the night gave way to early morning, freaking out.

So my question to the concerned citizens out there is this: how can we get back to where we were? Where Jack and his medium flows were working together? Any advice, no matter how crazy, is much appreciated. Thanks for caring …

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