End Justify the Means?

Wow-is anybody else with me in my shock that Drew is 10 weeks old today? It feels like the whole birth/recovery experience all just happened, when, in fact, it happened 2 and a half months ago. Crazy. Drew is continuing to be his happy, curious self. He has recently discovered that hands are so much more than just a means to pull mommy's hair and scratch at her face when she is trying to feed him-they are also a tasty, ready-to-eat treat! It is so funny watching him sit there and suck at his little hands. He hasn't figured out how to open his hand and suck on his thumb or fingers, right now, he's mainly just trying to cram the whole thing in at once. Quite charming.

My sister had her graduation party Saturday night, and Drew, being her "date", had to look the part. I've seen these tie onesies before and thought they were cute, and I loved how it turned out! He got so many compliments on it! Isn't he precious?

Goodness, I just looked at the clock (9:30 am) and can hardly believe how much I've accomplished so far today compared to most. The difference? Drew slept 9 hours in a row last night! It was amazing. Again, the difference? I gave Drew a small bottle of formula to top him before bed last night, and I'm not sure if it was the bottle feeding or the formula, but WOW.

In short, Drew usually eats his last full meal around 9-10 pm, and I put him down by about 11-11:30. Before I put him down I like to top him off to encourage him to stay down longer. For the last few nights, though, he has been so fussy and uncooperative that he eats for no more than 5 minutes or so, and is fussy and unhappy the entire time (hence the aforementioned hair pulling/scratching). I assumed that it was because he just wasn't hungry an hour after a full meal. A friend suggested trying a bottle, and, to my surprise, he drank almost 4 ounces of it last night! Afterwards he laid down with minimal fussing and was out until 8:00 this morning.

So the question of the day is this: was it the formula, the bottle, or a combination of the two? Greg and I have decided to try another bottle feeding tonight, but this time with breast milk and see how that goes. I really do believe that, if he had nursed last night instead of being given a bottle, there would have been no way he would have taken anywhere close to the 4 ounces he took in the bottle. Can anyone come up with a theory as to why? The nipple on the bottle is low-flow, so it's not like he's being forced to eat when he's given a bottle, and I also know that he could easily have gotten 4-5 ounces from nursing, so low milk production doesn't make sense either. Either way, nightly formula is not a habit I want to get into at this point, but, if I can achieve nearly the same results with breastmilk in a bottle...well, I see no harm. Do you?