Bottles

hiketheworld · June 2014

Dear god there are so many brands and kinds! I'm planning on breast feeding but will be working so I will be needing bottles. What do you guys recommend registering for? I'm overwhelmed with choices and no experience!

hiketheworld · June 2014

How many bottles total? What size in ounces? (Should've added this earlier)

Acedit · June 2014

I'm a first time mom too, but my friends who have a baby or two or three have recommended that I register for a few different kinds a couple bottles each... Then figure out which one works, if the first one works great, you can take back the others and get more of the kind that work. The recommended bottles were the Dr Brown's, Playtex Ventaire, Avent & Tommie Tippee brands....they said to start with 4 oz and the newborn nipple, and get the breast feed flow if you are going to breast feed.

KLKilgore · June 2014

It took us a couple times to complete our registry and that wall was the last one we did! My friend registered for a couple of different kinds in both a single and multi pack. She opened the single first and if baby liked it, she kept the rest. If baby didn't like it, she returned them and got more of whichever ones she liked. We chose to pick one kind and try that. We did a single, the various three packs, and a couple packs of nipples per "flow".

We also did the breast feeding sets as well, which came with quite a few.

At one point I was actually sitting on the floor staring at the wall trying to take it all in! My husband just laughed and agreed with whatever I scanned!

missiongirl78 · June 2014

Agree with everyone else to have one of a few different types/brands on hand and see what works best. We went with Dr. Brown's, which have a lot of extra parts to clean, but they worked well for our LO b/c All the parts help to reduce the air they take in. Initially we used the medela bottles that came with my breast pump, but once I started using Dr. Brown's - the difference was very noticeable! I never used another bottle after that. However, I have lots of friends who used medela, tommie tipee, etc. and never had any issues.

Here's a tip on how to get a few free bottles! Have you registered at Target? When I registered there for our first, a free bottle came in our registry packet. Also, I made a purchase recently at a Destination Maternity Outlet. They also gave me a big packet of coupons and a free bottle!

kimberly_ann81 · June 2014

I breastfed both DS's exclusively, but Sweet Pea got a bottle for 2-3 months when I went back to work to finish out the school year. I used Tommee Tippee bottles. They are suppose to make it easier to switch between the breast and a bottle. Sweet pea did well with those but Peanut wasn't really interested in any type of bottle.

I just bought the biggest bottles, 8-9 oz, since you can make/use any amount that you want in them. Never understood by you would buy a bottle that only held 4-5 oz. Waste of money IMO. We had 6 and that seemed to work best for us. 3 to daycare and 3 at home to clean for the next day.

I HIGHLY recommend that what every type you buy get the WIDE mouthed bottles. So much easier to pour breast milk or the powdered formula into . My daycare boy used Dr. Brown and I finally got a funnel to help me add the formula into the bottle because I was constantly having it miss the opening and spill on the counter.

carcrashheart · June 2014

We used avent and born free. I actually liked the smaller 4-5oz bottles. DS didn't start taking more than 5oz until he was 6+ mos. It was nice to not have a huge ass bottle with a tiny 2oz in it. But certainly the bigger sizes would work just fine.

We didn't exactly find it hard to put formula or liquid in to the bottles. The scoops are small. But I suppose that can be more challenging for some, making a wide mouth better.

DS didn't refuse any one kind. We registered for those two brands and he used them interchangeably. We used tomee tipee at my parents and that was fine with him. I wish I had registered for different flow nipples. Mostly bc I'm cheap and those suckers are more expensive than I think they should be! I'm sure that bc DS was always FF he didn't have any reason to refuse bottles/nipples.

I ended up preceding avent because the extra pieces of the born free were annoying. I'm glad I didn't bother with dr browns and their gazillion pieces. We had gas issues so the born free were better when he was tiny.

ccam · June 2014

I would put a few small packs of a few different brands on your registry. Then when you figure out which bottle your LO will take, you can buy more (maybe hold onto a gift certificate for that). If you open a gift pack and your LO doesn't take that type of bottle, it's a complete waste of a bunch of bottles.

justjinny · June 2014

We just use the Gerber bottles and never had any issues with air/burps. The bottles are cheap, simple and easy to clean. I think we have about 12-15 6 oz. bottles so we aren't constantly doing dishes. I reorder an 18 pack of nipples every 2 months on Amazon.

abbyful · June 2014

Plain old Playtex Drop-Ins.

I researched all sorts of "fancy" bottles when pregnant with DS, what I kept finding was many breastfeeders just used Playtex Drop-Ins, s that's what I tried first, worked like a charm! DS was breastfed over a year, never had any nipple-confusion or problems related to the bottle.

We stuck with the slow-flow nipples the entire time, he never got any medium or fast flow nipples.

We also only ever used the 4oz bottles.

Breastmilk changes as the baby grows, so you usually don't have to up the amount (unlike formula, where you have to give bigger bottles as baby grows). We had one single 8oz bottle, only used it a handful of times and that was when he was around a year old and we used for cows milk.

wildflower75 · June 2014

@abbyful Where did you buy the playtex drop ins? I could never find them!

We ended up using Born Free and they worked great. But lots of times depending on the child and if they have colic you might have to try many different brands.