Grace and Hazel

Every parent knows (we just read this in the manual) that having a kid is just a giant experiment. There are books and websites and people out there to tell you what works and what doesn’t but its all a crap shoot because every child is different and “perfect” in their own way.

This weekend Jenn decided the time was right for the Great Nipple Experiment. As you may or may not know, all nipples are not created equal. While this is obviously true comparing mine to Jenn’s, it is also true of the store-bought kind that we attach to Grace’s bottles. They sell slow flow (Level 1), medium flow (Level 2) and, for those wild babies learning to chug formula like a frat guy, fast flow (Level 3).

Dainty little Grace has been using Level 1 since she came home from the hospital. She generally takes a few ounces of formula in 25-30 minutes. Sometimes she does this easily but more and more often we have to work to feed her. Since she refuses to talk, it is difficult to say whether gas, clogged nipples or stubbornness is the cause of the tougher feeds. Yesterday, as Lincoln and I left for the hardware store, Jenn decided to test her hypothesis that it was the nipple that was causing the problems.

When we got home about 20 minutes later, Jenn said “So…um…I found out what Level 2 nipples do”

“Oh yeah?”

“First of all, she took the whole bottle in about 9 minutes”

I should mention that Jenn likes to add drama to numbers by hitting either ridiculous end of a range for effect. Things can either happen in 5 seconds or 1 million years. When I hear her say a number, I have to assess whether this is a drama number or a real number. This one sounded real. Hmmm, cutting the feeding time by 2/3 might save us hours per week, hours we could be doing laundry! BUT it also might yield some unexpected results.

“And?” I asked slowly, “How did that work out?”

“Well…there was kind of a wet burp…and then I spent the next 10 minutes watching all of it come back out all over both of us.”

So what did we learn? First, trying to save time for laundry can make more dirty laundry. Second, we might have a new way of making those volcanoes that are so popular at science fairs. Third, Grace probably isn’t ready for Level 2.

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