Three Problems
When Lucy was two weeks old, we had our greatest test as new parents. She woke up at 3:30 in the morning—not a time we considered particularly unusual—and we robotically began the process of heating up some milk and getting her ready to feed. But after ten minutes or so, our usually ravenous baby had made nary a dent in the bottle. And then she began to cry, a cry that progressed into a wail.
We assumed, as is often the case, that she wasn't actually hungry but had some gas. Babies have three problems: hunger, gas, and sleep. We burped her for what felt like a very long time, to no avail, then gave her the bottle again—also to no avail. Okay, so that leaves sleep, we thought, and tried to put her back down, having done the napkin math and confirmed that we weren't accidentally going to starve her. Nevertheless, she persisted in wailing. This legitimately felt like the first time as new parents where we were defeated. There was a problem we could not solve.
We repeated the rotation of burping and bottle and bassinet for another round, until Haley, in a fit of inspiration, grabbed the bottle and tried using it herself—at which point she discovered there was a clot in the nipple. Five minutes later, Lucy's belly was full and her eyes were closed. To this day, we do not hand her a bottle without making sure it's unblocked.