The dreaded evil bottle

I hate bottles. I think they are gross, nasty little vessels of grime and germs and I loathe them. That being said, Max uses bottles. About 3 months ago the doctors changed the formula that goes in his feeding tube and while it is working great for him, it is so much more work for us! His old formula was ready to eat in a can and all we had to do was pop a top and pour it in the tube. He developed an allergy to the hypo-allergenic formula (go figure) and lost weight and took a couple steps backwards in his development. So they gave us another formula that is so hypo allergenic that if he is allergic to this stuff he is in trouble! It comes in cans of powder that we have to mix up ourselves. We have to mix it in bottles and it is such a hassle! The regular directions for mixing the formula do not apply to Max and we had to do some pretty serious math to figure out the right calorie per ounce configurations but we got finally figured it out after a lot of trial and error. So now we have bottles. LOTS of bottles and everyday I remind myself of the reasons I breastfeed. Put aside the obvious nutritional benefits and all that.....my baby would starve because I could never find a bottle. We lose them all the time and cleaning them when I do find them is such a pain in the neck! So to all those moms who say hats off to the breastfeeding moms because they think it is difficult, my hat goes off to you! Formula feeding is tough and I don't see how you make all those bottles on a daily basis AND keep up with them!! Way to go!!

For the record, this is not a post debating breast milk vs formula. It is truly a mothers perspective on both sides of the issue.