Product Spotlight: Bottles

Avrilmai

The final part of our newborn feeding series is all about bottles. 

What did you like/dislike?

glass, silicone, plastic. 

bottle accessories that you recommend, avoid, etc. Share you knowledge and experience or ask your questions. 


Product Spotlight Spreadsheet

doxiemoxie212

This is my one takeaway from all things child-related, not just bottles: silicone absorbs the smell of the dishwasher, and it might bug your kid, and then you might be stuck washing everything by hand. Sooooo I'm pretty pro non-silicone (I think the nipples basically have to be, but the container doesn't) for starting out and seeing what your kid likes or doesn't like. 

I like the boon grass drying rack.

doxiemoxie212

Oh! And the oxo tot bottle brush is good - it has a little tiny one inside of itself so you can get into the nipple etc. They also have a travel version which is good - it has a little tiny drying rack too. 

shlecks

I used Dr Browns and Avent bottles.  I think I personally liked the Avent better because they had fewer parts, but the Dr Browns is supposedly better for preventing gas etc.

Blondesweety444

The NICU sent us home with Dr Browns because they have good preemie nipples. (not size, but speed of flow related). But I hated washing so many pieces and parts, especially the little straw tube thing.

DS5 formed an oral aversion (can be common in preemies) and so he wouldn't take anything with a long nipple. They made him gag instantly and he refused to take pacifiers too. So we switched over to the MAM bottles and had really good luck for a while. They have flat nipples and vents at the bottom for gas/colic. We did have trouble with them leaking occasionally which was frustrating. But that usually happened at 3am when we were being careless.

Question: we kept all of our bottles, but they've been sitting in storage for 5+ years. Some of those years being in attics that got pretty hot. I'm now wondering if I should toss them for safety reasons? We had a lot so it will be quite sad to see all that $ go in the trash. But safety first! I think we kept a ton of pumping supplies too. Same question for these!

doxiemoxie212

@Blondesweety444 I think it might be you could keep the bottles but get new nipples? You'd just sterilize them before using them again.

aloha_mama

+1 for the Boon drying rack. Love it. 

We used Avent bottles for DD6. Didn’t love or hate them, will probably change to Comotomo this time.

I’m a NICU RN and we primarily use Dr Brown’s on the unit for reflux control. Our speech therapists recommend it the most. We also recommend Parent’s Choice from Walmart and Tommee Tippee.

monstera13

Yes to the boom grass drying rack! 

We had terrible luck with bottles- DS4 wouldn’t take bottles at all, so when I went back to work he basically switched to a reverse feeding schedule. 

Fun tip for carrying the bottles to daycare- a 4- or 6-pack (like from buying beer) is the perfect size to carry baby bottles as well! 

@Blondesweety444 Are they plastic or glass? Id probably throw out plastic bottles that sat in a hot attic for 4 years. 

basil6

We are going to try comotomo baby bottles, friends have recommended them to me for switching between breast and bottle. We are also planning to get  the sample box from Babylist so you can find your “one.”

Blondesweety444

@monstera13 they are plastic, I think I'm leaning towards throwing them away. I think it would cause me more anxiety than its worth to try and use them.
@doxiemoxie212 I kept the nipples, but I'll definitely throw those away as well.

emky0704

Question about sterilizing bottles - is it actually important? Wondering if I should add a bottle sterilizer to my registry or if it's just another unnecessary item marketed to new moms...
If it makes a difference, I'm planning to use glass bottles.

monstera13

@emky0704 Team soap and water! 

Blondesweety444

@emky0704 sterilizers are unnecessary. You can buy steam bags to sterilize in the microwave if you really want to. We used our dishwasher to wash everything because we were too lazy to hand wash. The dishwasher conveniently had a sterilize mode so we would use that too. We would do just a load of bottles and pump parts, no regular dishes (which would fill almost an entire load for us since I EP'd/bottle fed).

queenklau

You can also boil everything the first time you use it. Separate all the parts. Boil water and put the nipples, bottles, pacis In boiling water for 5 min. After that, I just hand-washed or dish washed in hot water after every use. I used babyganics dish soap with my first, and just a gentle dish detergent for my second baby.

aloha_mama

@emky0704 No need to regularly sterilize bottles unless baby develops thrush, then it may just be easier to toss everything and buy new. Boil in water on the stove for a few minutes after initially opening all the parts but after that, no need to repeat. Pump
parts should be sterilized at least once a day but there are microwaveable bags you can buy to help you with that.

Ivorytower2

Boon drying rack and Avent bottles ftw!!

Avrilmai

I used the kiinde system for pump/store/feeding. but when i needed "regular" bottle we used the comotomo bottles. the daycare providers where thrilled when DS started and they saw the comotomo bottles they were like these are the best!

Also +1 for the boone drying rack, get some of the accessories, like the trees/flowers to utilize some vertical space.  I also recommend getting a bottle brush. DH washed all of the bottle/ pump parts since I was always doing the feeding, he liked the Dr. Brown's bottle brush. 

lemonlove86

+1 for the boon lawn/grass. Make sure to wash the tray it sits in!

DD would only take tommee tippee but she was kind of picky with bottles and pacis. Wouldn’t take the Avent even though thats what I pumped into. I never changed the nipple flow so I feel like you can pass on that extra piece of replacing nipples because of age. 

Buy cheap ish bottle brushes because you’ll change them often. I loved the lavender scented dapple soap. Super mild. 

FishyMom

Amazon had a good deal on comotomo bottles last week so I think I got a set of 8. I hope he likes them. Used every kind in the book for DD1 and still just sprayed milk in her mouth instead… and used Tomee Tippy for DD2. But pumped into Avent. 

I might be in the same boat with attic bottles, I’ll probably toss.