Holy bottles batman!

[Ray]

Heller! So I am killing time making my registry and when I got to the "bottles" section it was like BAM!!!!! 63838383 different kinds, vented non-vented, plastic, glass, liners, bent, straight holy shit!

I realize there is a baby gear board but thought I'd pick your brains first. I am totally overwhelmed and have no idea where to start. I plan to try to breastfeed and pump so that DH can feed too.

So, what do you/do you plan to use? Recommendations? Things to avoid? Things I haven't thought of? Aaaand go!

[mcktymck]

Great question Ray! I plan on doing the same as you so look forward to responses from the more experienced mom's here. I started my registry recently and decided to go with the most natural/breast-like bottles with anti-colic, and asked for two different brands to see which one baby preferred the most. I asked for Dr. Browns and Tommee Tippee "Closer to Nature". I'm hoping those are good choices

[harlowjune1984]

Since I used so many different brands and styles as a nanny, I knew exactly which ones I wanted to use when I became a parent: Dr Brown (glass). My current nanny kids used Tommee Tippee and they could never latch on the huge nipple correctly and milk would pour out of the sides of their mouths. Another nanny kid had the ones with the drop in liners, and it seemed like his mom was always having to run to the store for liners. My friend used the Dr Brown (wide mouth), and they didn't hook to the pump, they didn't fit the bottle holders in the diaper bag, etc. My other nanny kids used the Dr Brown (glass), Avent, and the Playtex Ventaire. So I got to try out quite a few before becoming a parent.

Using the normal ones (and not wide mouth), they fit easily in cup holders in the car, the diaper bag, hooked up to my pump, etc. I know that a lot of people complain about all of the parts, but now they have ones where you can use all of the parts, or take the straw thing out and use it as a regular bottle. I never had an issue with the parts, as I had a supply of enough bottles to last me throughout the day, after a feeding I would take it apart and rinse in hot water (so milk wouldn't dry on it), and put it into the sink. At the end of the day, I put all of the parts in the dishwasher. Since they were glass, they always came out squeaky clean without any hard water marks (which would happen to the plastic ones). We also never dealt with the nipple collapsing, or any leaks, and I don't know how many times I dropped those things on our hardwood floors....and they never broke.

I also know that a lot of people will say "Don't pick the bottle, your baby will pick the bottle." I don't know if it is because I EP'ed and she was on the bottle as soon as we left the hospital, but Dr Browns were the only thing that was offered and we had zero issues. I know that for some friends that did both BF-ing and used a bottle, some didn't have an issue with only offering one style, and some did.

[rungirlrun]

For my son, I breastfed 90% of the time and pumped/used bottles the rest. We only tried Dr Bronners (oops that should be Browns - Bronners makes a body wash we use) and had zero issues. I'd recommend getting a few brands but only open a couple at a time so if the first ones you try work, you can return the rest.

Registering sucks. There are 5 million baby products but you will only use like 20. Good luck!

*Edited for wording.

[madamewaffles]

<abbr>harlowjune1984,</abbr> what storage system did you like best to use for your breast milk?

[tikoberry99]

I just ordered Dr. Browns glass bottles from Amazon. I'm a pretty crunchy chick and don't use plastic in my house so I knew I wanted glass bottles and Dr. Browns had the best reviews.

[lostinfaith225]

I am not much help with breastfeeding since ds was ff from day one. But, we used Dr. Brown bottles. They helped reduce reflux. There are a lot of little pieces, but worth it!

They were a favorite among my old bmb.

[sarcaztic10]

We used Dr. Browns plastic bottles with DS mostly because he was very fussy. I am not sure if they really cut down on any of his fussiness or gas but we bought a ton of them and we basically got stuck with them after that. We really didn't like cleaning all of the parts for them and that is the main reason we probably won't use them again. Some people don't mind spending the extra time taking everything apart and cleaning the tiny spaces with a pipe cleaner or something but it was a big hassle for us. DS cried all the time and we never seemed to have the time to immediately rinse out all the tiny parts so the formula would dry into those tiny spaces and we would have to really scrub them so they wouldn't get moldy and gross. We switched to a sippy cup when DS was about 1 year old and threw away all of our bottles after that.

This time I am going to be trying out the Avent bottles and the Tommy Tippee kind. I like that the Avent bottles have additional parts so they can transition into a sippy cup later. I have heard good things about the Tommy Tippee bottles but I have never tried them. I am mildly interested in the Kiinde system for bottles because I will be pumping and attaching the breast milk bag directly to the nipple part and using it then just throwing away the bag when done is intriguing. I like the idea of just having to clean the nipple part and that's it. Then again I can see the cost of buying the milk storage bags all the time being kind of a burden.

[those3words]

We used glass bottles at home and I also pumped into glass bottles. I found that BM fat didn't stick to the sides as much when warmed.

For daycare we used the smaller Avent bottles and the regular Tommy Tippees because they were cheap but durable.

For feeding I generally preferred the wide neck bottles. They were easier to clean and easier for DS to grab as he got older. They also seem a little more similar to my breast so he had no problem going back and forth.

As for nipples, I never changed from the slow flow nipples. DS was fine with it and otherwise he would have chugged a bunch of air. Some babies will get frustrated with slow flow nipples as they get older - but I don't recommend buying extra nipples until you know what your kid needs.

Personally, I'm not a fan of Dr. Browns - there were too many parts to keep track of and fit together.

[tootsie]

I used the Medela ones because I was using a Medela pump and it didn't occur to me that other bottles would fit. They worked fine. This time I may try glass, but still buy some of the Medela bottles because it seems rather painful to have heavy glass bottles for pumping.

[lostinfaith225]

I always put my dr brown parts in the dish washer. Easy clean. We had a dish washer basket.

[glaze]

I used Tommy Tippee with both kids and had no issues and liked the brand. I BF and introduced the bottle slowly at around 3-4 weeks and they took it fine. I never tried anything else so that's all I can vouch for. I know some kids have issues with taking a bottle. My sister went through a ton of different brands before finding one her baby would take but she also waited longer to introduce the bottle.

[beebe918]

We used and will continue to use Avent Natural. We got a tommee tippee as a gift and did not like it. We also received several platex ventaire bottles and I HATED them, they were always leaking out of the bottom. I threw all of them away in a rage one day.

[acorn99]

I used the Avent Naturals for no particular reason. My only advice is to not go too crazy just in case your LO doesn't like the nipples. Pick out a kind you like, buy a couple, then you can always buy more later. But if you buy a ton that baby doesn't like, you are stuck with them.

[katelou]

I would start simple in the low- to mid-price range bottles and see how baby does with those before investing in something more expensive or complicated.

Don't feel like you have to buy the most expensive bottle out there to have the 'best' . Some of the fancy brands are stupid expensive, like $10-15 a bottle. You'll go broke buying enough.

Also, don't start out with anything overly complicated either. I got obsessed with the perfect nipple for myBF baby and bought those stupid Medela Calma nipples that are supposed to mimic the breast better. They had multiple parts to disassemble to wash and reassemble to use which was so cumbersome if you're going back to work.

I also just started with the Medela bottle that came with my pump and stuck with that brand and the slow-flow nipples til age 1. My DD was BF and BF babies eat less by volume (usually max out at 5 oz/feed versus 8 oz/feed for a FF baby) so I used the same 5 oz bottles and level 1 nipples her entire first year.

[comicSans]

We only had the Tommy Tippee and medala that came with the he pump. We had no issues with either, but didn't use them much since my milk didn't keep.

Don't worry too much. Have a couple on hand, but you can always get others if you need them. That's my advice with all baby stuff now - don't worry, you'll figure it out when you need to.

[sarcaztic10]

Feb 9, 2016 14:19:29 GMT -5 lostinfaith225 said:

I always put my dr brown parts in the dish washer. Easy clean. We had a dish washer basket.

We put the nipples, cap, and bottle parts in the dishwasher but found that the vent parts on our never got clean enough in the dishwasher. They actually started to get moldy if we didn't use a pipe cleaner on them. We were terrible about immediately rinsing out the bottles after a feeding though so I imagine that caused some of our problems. We just found that we never had time to rinse right away so it had to wait a few hours.

If we tried Dr. Browns this time around I think we would have the same problems and since LO will be in daycare this year I don't know if the caregivers would take the time to rinse the parts out right away either. DS was not put in DC until he was 1 year but this time we don't have that option.

[beebe918]

Also, this probably goes without saying but there are different size nipples. We bought Avent naturuals and they came with size 2 nipples. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out my kid was throwing up after every feeding because he needed a slower flow nipple.

[katelou]

Also, if you're going back to work and pumping, you might want to look into bottle/pump compatibility. The pump will come with bottles to pump the milk into. Certain bottle brands will screw on to certain pumps (for example, some Evenflo will screw on to the Medela pump) and some won't.

If the bottles your baby uses don't screw on to the pump, you're going to have to dump the milk from the pump bottles into the bottles the baby uses, which means more washing. It's not the end of the world and lots of people do it, but I felt it was a lot easier to pump into one set of bottles, stick a cap on them, and send them directly to the babysitter the next day.

If you're SAH or have a long mat leave and are only pumping an occasional bottle, it's probably not worth worrying about.

[harlowjune1984]

madamewaffles, I used the breastmilk bags and laid them flat in the freezer, so I could stack them easier. Nuk brand was really good, as I rarely had a leak with those (or the Lansinoh brand), and with the Nuk ones, I could put 8oz in each bag (even though they are marked for 6oz). I did have a lot of leaks with other brands, but found that since BM can be left out for 6 hours at room temp, I would put it into a clean glass storage container, and let it defrost on the counter. Then IF the bag leaked for some reason, I could dump the breastmilk that came out of the bag, from the storage container into the bottle and didn't lose any milk. I will never forget the time I was defrosting my boss's milk under running warm water (while talking with her), and looked down at the bag and it was EMPTY! As it was thawing, it was leaking out of the bag, and going right down the drain. And if I ever thawed in a container of warm water, if there was a leak, it went right into the water and the BM that came out of the bag was wasted. But I filled three freezers with breastmilk, and the Nuk and Lansinoh were the ones least likely to leak. I did try glass mason jars, but they took up more space than just using the bag, and it was a pain to thaw out the correct amount that I needed (plus, some mason jars aren't freezer safe). My friend found an ice cube tray with spaces that were narrow enough that the cube could fit through the bottle opening, and she froze hers into 1oz cubes, then put them into a ziploc (labeled by week it was pumped). She said it worked well in the beginning, when baby was drinking 4oz or less, but once he was at 6oz, she couldn't fit 6 cubes in there....if she wanted to throw some into a bottle and head out the door.

[harlowjune1984]

sarcaztic10, did you ever try putting the Dr Brown straw directly on one of your dishwasher rack prongs? I never put them in the bottle dishwasher basket (I only put the brown rubber piece, nipple, and screw on piece in there), and always just slide the blue straw right over one of the prongs.

[sarcaztic10]

Feb 9, 2016 16:07:21 GMT -5 harlowjune1984 said:

sarcaztic10, did you ever try putting the Dr Brown straw directly on one of your dishwasher rack prongs? I never put them in the bottle dishwasher basket (I only put the brown rubber piece, nipple, and screw on piece in there), and always just slide the blue straw right over one of the prongs.

We tried that and they got mostly clean but still had residue from our hard water on them. The little brown vent prices were a real problem do us because it seemed like they never quite got clean unless we prescribed with a pipe cleaner and hot soapy water. Then we would just throw the straw I with the soapy water too and we ended up basically hand washing half of the bottle parts and putting the other half in the dishwasher.

[harlowjune1984]

tootsie, I used the glass ones on the Medela pump and it wasn't too bad. But that is because those are the bottles that I had on hand. I used the Medela ones that came with the pump for the first day, but by day two, I was pumping 8oz out of both sides....every two hours. So I switched to the glass ones, since I didn't want to run out and buy two plastic 8oz bottles just for pumping. But that also depends on how much you are pumping, and how much you are getting. If I was BF at the same time, and just pumping occasionally, I doubt I would have been pumping that much milk and would have just stuck to the little bottles that came with the pump.

[harlowjune1984]

Feb 9, 2016 16:14:16 GMT -5 sarcaztic10 said:

Feb 9, 2016 16:07:21 GMT -5 harlowjune1984 said:

sarcaztic10 , did you ever try putting the Dr Brown straw directly on one of your dishwasher rack prongs? I never put them in the bottle dishwasher basket (I only put the brown rubber piece, nipple, and screw on piece in there), and always just slide the blue straw right over one of the prongs.

We tried that and they got mostly clean but still had residue from our hard water on them. The little brown vent prices were a real problem do us because it seemed like they never quite got clean unless we prescribed with a pipe cleaner and hot soapy water. Then we would just throw the straw I with the soapy water too and we ended up basically hand washing half of the bottle parts and putting the other half in the dishwasher.

I only had to use the pipe cleaner, if I left a bottle out and didn't rinse it. So I bet that was the problem. I was always too scared to leave them out, because I knew it would suck opening them later (smell wise, and cleaning wise)!

[emilillies]

Sorry if this is a repeat. My advice is do not buy/register for any big kits of bottles. You don't know what your babe will prefer or be able to latch onto. I know so many people, myself included, that ended up with a bunch of wasted bottles. Just get singles of 2 or 3 brands and see which baby prefers. My sisters baby had a tongue tie, so it ended up not even being about preference, but what he was able to take.

Also, skip the teeny 4 Oz and go for the 9.

[activebaby]

I got some different sample bottles that came with clothes at a maternity store, had a couple bought for me, but we used Medela bottles and those worked for us. Plan to use the same again and see if DS2 agrees. We used the smaller bottles mainly and that was easy for us. I'd agree with advice to not overload on buying too many of a brand until you figure out what LO likes. I bf and pumped and used the freestyle Medela pump.

[ellebelle]

We mostly used Dr. Brown's and some Aveda and Medela bottles as well. We had a couple Tommee Tippee bottles that were given to us by friends but DD never liked them. Each baby is different. When I went back to work I pumped into the Aveda bottles (pump I had for the first 3 months back at work before switching to Medela). Then when I got home I would keep what was needed for the next day fresh in the fridge and if I had any left over to freeze I would use Lansinoh bags and lay them flat just like harlowjune1984 described. After they were frozen I stored them like in this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4nr7hxToiY It was the most space-efficient, least likely to lead to leaky bags technique I could find.

[housecarder]

I hate Dr. Brown's bottles, but my LO's never were that gassy. But the extra parts were just something I didn't want to deal with after finally getting a moment to myself and wanting to quickly clean bottles and relax.

Yes, some babies aren't picky about the bottles and pacifiers but others are. DD would only take the Avent soothie pacifiers and DS took anything.

I would say to follow PP advice and only buy or open a couple at a time in case baby hates them.

With DD I used the drop in liners and liked that it was less to clean, but it was a lot of extra money. With DS we used Avent and will register for those again. From BF groups I've stalked, the main thing you need to focus on is slow flow nipples that will mimic the slow flow of breast feeding.

[TheTuna15]

There's a lot of dr. Browns love here.

We went with the munchkin latch bottles. Never had a problem with gas, never had a problem getting the bottles clean, and had no issues going back and forth from breast to bottle. I thought about going glass, but I have asshole cats. I also live with just regular stupid so I didn't think they would last a month in my house.

We registered for the set and it worked out really well for us. But K still only takes 4oz bottles (she has a hard ass time holding the 8oz bottles up and straight). So, it's really going to be up to your kid.

[mrss44]

My advice would be don't buy a ton of bottles just yet.. wait till baby is here and you figure out what they like. My nephew would only drink out of avent natural bottles!