So, here's the update. We haven't given up the breastfeeding ghost quite yet; we're giving it one last go. We both know that we could certainly make it work if we put in the time and effort required, but we just happen to be running out of both. To achieve our goal, to bottle feed expressed breast milk while Jeni's away and breastfeed while she's home, we really should have gotten Hosea's breastfeeding skills established in the weeks before Jeni went back to school. Unfortunately, for a whole load of reasons, that didn't happen. We're now trying to get him to be satisfied feeding from the breast at night and bottle during the day when he's become accustomed to feeding solely from the bottle. It's going to be an uphill battle and we have it in us to do one last push, but perhaps not more than that.

The central difficulty in this whole experience is that Hosea has refused to play by the book. His habits and desires don't correspond to what all the breastfeeding advice says to expect from your baby. As an example: most breastfeeding advice warns against "nipple confusion." Nipple confusion is characterized not so much by confusion per say, but by a baby's preference for the bottle over the breast. Hosea, although he fed primarily off a bottle for so long, offers little resistance to taking the breast. Instead, his problems have included frantic and erratic breathing while eating, chomping down unexpectedly, and generally destroying Jeni's nipples.

Anyway, at this point the plan is for Jeni to feed Hosea whenever she's home. We'll continue on as long as Jeni can. If she gets to the point where pain or frustration forces her to stop feeding again we'll reevaluate our plan, but at that point I think we'll be pre-disposed to calling it quits.