I learned when Little Bug was born that it doesn’t take carrying a baby in your womb for 9 months for motherly instincts to kick in upon birth.

All it took was for me to know that Little Bug was my daughter.

A situation arose last night with Sweet Pea concerning what formula she would be on.

Sweet Pea has had no feeding issues. She is on a 3-hour feeding schedule and when it is time to eat she takes to the bottle right away and gulps the 2 ounces down in no time at all.

Yesterday, the nurse informed me they were switching from Enfamil Newborn to Enfamil Gentlease.

The reason for the switch was because Sweet Pea’s stools have been very runny and they felt Sweet Pea needed something that would be gentle on her stomach.

The 2pm feed was to be her first feed on the new formula. I did that feeding and immediately noticed it seemed like Sweet Pea did not like that formula at all. Instead of taking right to the nipple, she made this awful face as if I was giving her vinegar to drink.

I told the nurse that Sweet Pea didn’t like the new formula but she told me to keep trying.

I got her to take the full feeding eventually but it sure wasn’t a pleasant experience for either one of us.

Same thing happened at Sweet Pea’s 5pm feeding. She acted like I was feeding her poison but she eventually got it down.

At the 8pm feeding Sweet Pea was refusing to eat!

This was the first time EVER I had seen her refuse a bottle and I knew it was because she dislikes the taste of Enfamil Gentlease.

I told the nurse that Sweet Pea was not eating and I told her that I thought it was because she dislikes the taste of the new formula.

The nurse told me to let her try to feed her.

I got up thinking, Ok, yeah, YOU can feed my baby so much better than I can and handed her Sweet Pea and then stood by them to watch. (That thought was dripping with sarcasm.)

I am not kidding when I say that Sweet Pea opened her eyes wide and looked right at me (turning away from the nurse and bottle) as if to say, “Mommy I do NOT like this! Make her stop trying to shove it down my throat!”

It was at that point I knew I needed to devise a plan to prove to the nurse Sweet Pea dislikes the taste of Enfamil Gentlease!

The nurse and another nurse nurse who had overheard what was going on, started saying that Sweet Pea wasn’t eating because she wasn’t swaddled and it was too bright.

I was standing there thinking, Um. Nope. Sorry. She doesn’t like this formula!!

The nurse swaddled her good and dimmed the lights and Sweet Pea still refused to eat.

The nurses had had their little experiment in trying to get her to eat and so I decided it was time to ask if I could have my own little experiment.

So I explained how Sweet Pea had had NO feeding issues until the change in formulas. I told her again I thought Sweet Pea was refusing to eat because she disliked the taste of the new formula.

And then I asked, “Just for my peace of mind, will you please go get me a bottle of Enfamil Newborn so I can just see if she will drink that?”

The nurse surrendered her attempts of feeding her the “poison” and brought me a bottle of Enfamil Newborn.

I sat back down in the rocking chair with Sweet Pea, put the bottle to her mouth and within 15 minutes, that bottle was sucked completely dry.

Mother knows best. Always.

- Elaine