Playtex Drop-In’s vs. Little sleep and Mommy Brains

First of all, let me preface this with my love for Playtex bottles.  I used these bottles for Andrew, and loved the convenience and the portability of the Playtex bottles – plus the fact that there is less air, creating less gas overall. 

So Ethan is now 6 months old – and he still rarely sleeps through the night.  I have pretty much assumed it was my fault for not staying with babywise to the “T” like I did with Andrew; and not in any part to my son’s actual hunger.  So – I get up 1-2 times per night and feed him.  It stinks.

Through the move we never got to the box with Andrews old bottles. So we just bought new ones when we were switching Ethan over.  I also buy the Up & Up brands of the drop-in bags from Target. Some of the reason is because they’re cheaper – but the other reason is because the Playtex bags are all expandable – making for such a waste of bag when you’re only using 6oz, to use a whole 10oz bag.

But what I had failed to remember from the past- is that the OLD bottles had two markings on them.  One side had markings for the expandable drop-ins; while the other side had markings for the non-expandable ones… The newer Playtex bottles do not have both markings – just the ones for the expandable liners. Of course I had not thought a thing about it – as I just use the bottle, fill it up to the line; and go!

Then we had gone to see Joe’s parents and they had a bottle in their cupboard from when Andrew was a baby.  I grabbed the bottle because we’re always running short on bottles.  We’ve used that bottle now for the last few weeks with no problem.  Then this morning… haha….

For some reason this morning my logic must have turned back on.  I had filled the bottle with the wrong side facing me.  I said to myself, ‘hmm. That’s not the right side – that side is for the un-expand…ab..l…e.. *pause*.. oh STINK!!!’

Yeah.  So.  Looking at both sides –when I have been filling Ethan’s bottle to “6oz” over the past three months; he’s really only been getting 4oz.  And then I wonder why my child is waking up to eat every night?!! He’s only getting 16oz of milk a DAY (while I think that he’s getting 24!!) – BUT I’ve been putting three scoops of formula into a 4 oz bottle.  ugh…

The real tip-off should have happened a while ago.  I bought this other bottle – the Tommee Tippee brand bottle. I made Ethan a bottle one morning in that – and he wouldn’t drink from it. I assumed it was because of the shape of the nipple and him being used to the Playtex bottles.  So I then proceeded to dump the contents of that bottle into a Playtex bottle, and it filled it up all the way to the top.  I thought, ‘Oh Wow.  That’s why he won’t eat it…I have 8 oz of water and only 3 scoops of formula. It must taste bad to him!!’ So I added another scoop of formula and went on our merry way…. Then I proceeded to throw that other bottle away thinking to myself – how terrible that they’re such a nice company that makes such nice products (we use lots of their cups and bibs and other stuff from them that we LOVE) would have bottles with their markings off by two ounces! that’s kind-of a big deal!!

Parenting Failure… Well Anyway – Glad we know now – and now Ethan will be getting his full 6 oz of milk with a little lighter mixture of formula vs. water!