The End of the Bottle Battles

After weeks and weeks of trying to get Ridley to take the bottle, I have decided to stop trying. Yes, you read that right. I am raising the white surrender flag. Cease fire. Cease fire.
Yesterday was final battle day. It was the day that the sitter and I decided I was not going to come and nurse Ridley for lunch, and I was not going to come nurse her in the afternoon. She was going to go without nursing until she gave in to the bottle. We were going to force her into submission with a full day of no nursing. And I did it. I did not see Ridley until I got off work (the longest I've ever been away from her to date).
But Ridley went the 11 hours without milk. 11 hours! From 8am until I could feed her at 7pm. She did not take the bottle. By the end of the day, she was so tired and wore out from fighting it that she just let the bottle stay in her mouth without taking any of it down. She sat there with the nipple in her mouth, looking straight ahead like a broken down child. But she wasn't going to drink a drop. She just wasn't going to cry about it anymore.
I went home and called a nurse. I sat on the phone with her (while nursing!) for over a half hour going through every possible suggestion and recommendation. "Been there, done that," was my response to every single suggestion.
I told her how everyone has told me that if Ridley gets hungry enough, she would eventually eat. She told me that wasn't necessarily true. There have been moms that have taken their babies to the ER because of dehydration. I asked her what was the longest a baby could go without risk of dehydration. She told me they don't recommend a baby go any longer than 6-8 hours (we did 11!). I said I thought that I wasn't holding out long enough, that maybe I should withhold the breast from her at night too. What did she think? She said "starvation to submission" is never a good idea, and that's what others in the medical profession would say. She could develop negative connotations with eating that could be long term. I don't want Ridley to develop negative connotations with eating. Just imagine her having a hard time accepting solid foods due to a negative association! And everyone who tries to get Ridley to take the bottle say they feel like they are torturing her. My sitter said "I feel like I"m water boarding her!"
This is 100% what my intuition was telling me, that starving Ridley just wasn't the answer and just hearing it confirmed was enough for me to feel validated. I wish I hadn't needed someone to back me up, but so many people have told me "Oh, she's not going to remember this! She HAS to take the bottle. You're the mother." But my intuition was telling me, "If it were a kid throwing a tantrum about not eating their broccoli, okay, I see the point in digging my feet in the sand. But this is a little baby! She's only old enough to know that she wants me to nurse her and that's it. She's not old enough to reason, she's not old enough to "spoil" and she's not old enough to go long periods without food or liquid!" Ridley may be in the 95 percentile of weight, but going without milk isn't just about gaining weight, it's about staying hydrated as well.
One other thing that some people (including myself) were saying was that by me nursing Ridley at lunch, I was undermining our efforts with the bottle. But I don't feel that way anymore. For one, we tried 11 hours of holding out and that's long enough for me (how much longer was I supposed to hold out before Ridley ended up in the ER?!). But two, the nurse told me that the suggestion is to wait a good 10-15 minutes between attempting the bottle and nursing to avoid that association (the association that "hey, if I hold out Mom will come nurse me eventually). We waited a lot longer than 15 minutes, so I don't think she was making that association. She is just stubborn! I think if I wasn't fortunate enough to be able to breastfeed, we would be in the ER with her! If there was some sort of reason/emergency where I wasn't able to breastfeed, I think we'd be looking at a few days of hell and starvation and probably a trip to the hospital. But even if there wasn't a trip to the hospital, starving her into submission would not be ideal. I'd do it if I had to in that situation, but I'm luckily not in that situation. I'm not risking her well being for my convenience of her taking a bottle.
So, I say enough. I can go home and nurse her at lunch and in the afternoon, and that's just what I'm going to do! I'm done stressing over it and worrying that I'm not being a good mom because I can't get her on the bottle. I'm done worrying about not trying everything I can. I feel that I HAVE tried everything at this point and I need to recognize when I've been beaten.
Straight from the tap! The bottle has lost. Long live the breast. So ends the Bottle Battles of '10/'11.