Changing bottle nipples - advice/vent

brittalyn5187

We use the Playtex drop-in bottles, and since birth LO had been using the slow flow nipple (obviously), but over the last couple of weeks she has been taking forEVER to take 4 oz. It probably takes a good hour, sometimes more, for her to finish the 4oz bottle, and sometimes she wants even more after that. For the most part, I don't mind sitting with her for that long while she eats, but I'm back to work now and sometimes it just isn't feasible. Also, for the most part she STTN, but sometimes she still wakes up really early, like around 4 or 5 am. I work 2nd shift, so I'm usually not in bed until around 1-130, so waking up that early and having to be up with her for so long can be hard. We tried going to the medium flow nipples when this started a couple weeks ago, but I don't think she was ready. She would cough and choke a lot because it was too fast, so we went back to the slow flow.

Well, over the last couple of days I've been trying the medium flows again. Sometimes she gets going a little too fast and it starts to spill out of her mouth all over the place. I've figured out that as soon as that starts, if I take the bottle out of her mouth and then give it right back to her she slows down and starts getting it all again. Now, my question is, should I just keep at it with the medium flows until she totally adjusts? I would hate to switch back and forth between the medium and slow flows because I'm afraid she won't be able to totally adjust to the medium flows and would get all confused. My MIL seems to think that she should just totally stick to the slow flows because she "hates to see her baby not getting all her food." Well, the reason she doesn't get it all when she feeds her is because she doesn't listen to me! I tried to tell her how to do it so she gets it all, but she just doesn't seem to think that we should have to do that. I don't know. I'm just frustrated with it and was hoping someone would have some advice!

Sorry this sort of turned into a book! Thanks for reading if you got this far, though!