Daddy 1, Kali 0..........

I had another night with Kali 0.2 last night on my own. Granted, Mrs. Lime is only working in the next room over, but I'm trying to be an independent parent as much as I can while she's working. I'm slowly learning, but progress seems painfully slow at times. As I told Mrs. Lime, if she wants to get the feeling of what happens when it's me and the baby, just take care of the baby without using her breast and see how much things and tactics change.

Kali's new trick is to begin screaming her head off and refuse to eat if I offer her a bottle after 8:00 PM. It's her little rebellion to say, "I want the breast!!!!".

Lately, I've been trying to work my way through it. The first few times last week, I'd just hold the bottle in her mouth so she'd know it was there. She's to the point where the bottle nipple in her mouth actually encourages the screams rather than encourages her to eat. She's just having none of it as it gets closer to bedtime.

So last night, I tried something different. The first couple of times I left the bottle in her mouth as I had done before and had only more screams. The next time, I put the bottle in her mouth and she began to scream. This time, I pulled out the bottle and set it down. She yelled pretty good for a couple of minutes, but then she backed off it a bit and started staring me down while slightly whimpering with a rounded mouth.

Now I know people might call me crazy for suggesting this, but I firmly believe that my daughter, despite only being 7 weeks or so, is far smarter already than some might give a 7 week old credit for. This child knows already what buttons to push and I had been giving in to some degree by allowing her to breast feed at certain points.

I watched as she continued to whimper a bit. But then, I finally got her. She started to whimper louder, but smiled occasionally as she was doing it. Eventually, after about 15 minutes of whimpering, she went to sleep. This little baby figured out that the game wasn't going to end latched to a breast, so she finally just gave up and went to sleep. But she didn't go to sleep before smiling at me almost as an acknowledgment to me that I had finally won a battle with her.

I was very excited to have finally put her to sleep without giving in completely. She did wake up later and she did breast feed before heading to bed, but for at least one time, Kali figured out that she might not be winning every battle, even if she does flash that smile at me to try to sucker me in on occasion.