Well, I sure do appreciate your comments Kimmy.

I feel things very deeply,
but have huge problems expressing them in words. I see you understand that,
but many people do not. So I appreciate your "gift" to me this morning!

I agree with you about the pacifier. My son was a preemie and in the preemie nursery for
15 days. They had to feed him every 10 minutes because he vomited large quantities of food.
So as they lengthened his feeding times slowly to get him ready to come home, he
fussed alot. Hence the pacifier. They rolled a towel into a tube and taped the nipple to it.
And they didn't give it to me to take home. How was I to know (recovering from Csection)
that only one SHAPED nipple he would accept?

I sent my husband out to several stores and he bought one of every style until we found
the "correct" one. So I gave it to him now and then, like at the doctor's office etc.
It worked wonders. Then when he was about 3 mons old, he just spit it out...wouldn't accept it
anymore. And that was it. No clinging to it as a crutch or anything. It worked out really well.
He was so small, I figured....anything YOU want, baby, you get! We had gone thru almost dying
together, and I was not going to deny him anything. (or myself either for that matter). So share
this with your daughter.

Also the doctors told me that every infant has its own weakness. Some have immature nervous systems, and some
have problems with feeding. It varies and just is. My son never gobbled his formula (I couldn't breastfeed
because I was on 3 blood pressure drugs).. but he tended to spit up--reflux. So I just slowed him down
and made the feeding times longer slower.

P.S. I think babies gobble at the feeding if you wait til they are really hungry and screaming. If you watch the
preceeding behaviors, before the BIG demand, you catch the appetite, before they get tense and frantic,
and the gobbling and heavy sucking is less. It also has the payoff of him learning that Mom is there anyway
and you don't have to scream to get her attention. I always thought my son was a reasonable baby, but I
think I trained him to be that, now that I look back on it. Alot of intense baby behavior is fear/anxiety etc.
Teaching a baby to calm himself is a big task, and one we should pay attention to early. Then you can
have more enjoyment, and less reaction to screaming which is very tiring I think!