Bottles - How many do I need if breastfeeding?

skittleblu

Looking at the Avent bottles.  Should I go for the 4 oz or 9 oz?  And how many should I get of each if primarily breastfeeding?

Mereou12

Depends on your needs. Are you a SAHM or are you going back to work? Will you be leaving LO on a regular basis, or just for an occasional date night or bottle for hubby to give?

I'd start out with 2 or 3 and go from there if you're staying at home. Some babies are picky about bottles, so you don't want to stock up on a particular brand before you know for sure. I'd also recommend getting the big bottles. We bought small bottles and only used them a handful of times (I EBFed and SAH) before needing the bigger bottles.

skittleblu

I'll be going back to work.  Daycare will be feeding my breastmilk in bottles.

jksweets

Daycare will probably have some guidelines.  I would send quite a few there with your name on it so they don't have to wash it each time they feed the baby.  You won't need the 9oz bottles for a long time.  We had two 8oz and the only time we used them was when my DS was much older and on formula and we were going out for the day. We would fill them with his water and then use another smaller bottle to actually feed him.

laurel22

If you're going back to work, I would recommend 8-10 bottles.  That way, you can send a full day's supply of bottles to daycare while another set is in the dishwasher.

If you don't want to buy a whole second set of bottles later on when your baby needs more than 4 oz, just buy the 9 oz bottles (and trust me, babies can start eating more than 4 oz in a sitting pretty quickly!)  I always preferred the larger bottles anyway because they were easier to hold.  It made no difference to DS.

Also, I would recommend buying one or two each of a couple different brands so you can try them out before you buy an entire set.  Babies can be really picky about what brand of bottles they like, and every baby is different.  DS wouldn't eat out of Avent bottles (and they made him really gassy because those bottles put TONS of air into the milk).  He also didn't like Tommee Tippee bottles.  Finally, we wound up using Dr. Brown's wide mouth until he was 4 months.  At that point, he was past the gassy/colicy stage, so we switched over to ThinkBaby to save ourselves some sanity on all the cleaning involved with the Dr. Brown's bottles.  He liked the ThinkBaby bottles because they had the closest nipple shape we could find to Dr. Brown's.

And then, of course, we had to go through this aaaaalllll over again when we transitioned to sippy cups.  I must have tried 4 different types of sippy cups before I found one he would use.  Fun stuff.

Ruby_Soho

Talk to day care for sure. FWIW you can transition your bubs to sippys at about 6 months if you want and ditch the bottles then.

I'm a SAHM so only ever had 1 bottle! DS drank just fine from it when we needed him to so not all babies need 17 different brands to choose from. You might get lucky first time

If your baby is in day care for 10 hours a day, that's potentially 4 bottles per day. To make life super easy, have 13 bottles. 4 for day care, 4 to pump into at work for the following day and 4 in the wash to pump into the following day. Then 1 extra bottle for extra pumping sessions (date night, hairdressers, etc) and you can freeze the BM in a bag. IMHO.

hall_ky

I would just buy 1 Avent bottle for now. I started with 3 playtex drop-ins and he didnt take those. Then I bought 2 Avent, he didnt like those. I also tried the breastflow and that didnt work. I then tried to Playtex vent-aire and those he likes. I tried to look for a fat, short nipple which is similar to mine. The other nipples that were long and skinny he wouldnt latch on to.

My bottles range from 4-6 oz. depending on the brand. The Playtex vent aire that I am using now is 6 oz and is the perfect size for when we are out for a couple hours. He will usually take 2-3 oz in one sitting then 2 hours later take the other 2-3 oz.

amy_rski

We had about 8 playtex dropin bottles to feed from and then I had 8 Medela bottles to pump into.  I only ever used the smaller bottles since I could put in about 5 oz and that was typically the most he ever ate in one sitting.  I would send three 5 oz bottles to daycare per day and they had some frozen milk if they needed more.

I did buy the 8 oz bottles, but ended up not ever using the 8 oz bags for them.  

tct1219

If you're just going to pump on occasion and primarily breastfeed, 2-3 is plenty. I highly recommend glass (I have the Evenflo ones) as it's the safest choice for your baby, especially if you're warming the milk. You can buy a silicone sleeve if you're worried about breaking it.

You also might look into cup feeding (with a Doidy or other small cup) because it's much easier for a breastfed baby to pick up than a bottle. They use the same movement as with nursing and cups also don't have any of the risks associated with bottles. Just something to think about because I know that many people don't even know it's an option. Good luck!

Bruner1

I bf'd and worked full time. My daughter went to a home sitter. We did just fine w/ 6 of the small bottles & 4 of the larger ones. Basically, just double the # of bottles you think you'll need on a daily basis to account for times when the bottles need washed you don't have to hurry up & hand wash them before heading out the door.

FLchicken

amy_rski:

We had about 8 playtex dropin bottles to feed from and then I had 8 Medela bottles to pump into.  I only ever used the smaller bottles since I could put in about 5 oz and that was typically the most he ever ate in one sitting.  I would send three 5 oz bottles to daycare per day and they had some frozen milk if they needed more.

I did buy the 8 oz bottles, but ended up not ever using the 8 oz bags for them.  

 

Pretty much this exactly.  I had registered for and received a big starter kit of Dr. Browns.  DD never touched them. She was super picky about bottles and we tried nearly EVERY brand out there.  My home looked like a mini BRU.  The only thing she would take was a latex nipple, so we pretty much used the drop ins this whole time.  I used the smaller medela bottles that come with the pump and then the drops ins to feed.  I strongly suggest NOT buying a lot of bottles until you know what your LO likes.  Otherwise, you will waste a lot of money (and space) on bottles.

At nearly 11 months of BF'ing, we have never needed the larger sized bottles.