bottles/nipples

kathyn21

ok, so the plan is to eventually be breastfeeding but for now my DD is getting what little i can pump and mostly formula. when i get home i will need to find bottles that will work for her. what bottles did you use for your preemies? i am lost as to what kind of bottle and nipple to use. right now they are giving her the ready made little mini bottles of similac advanced where the nipple just attaches to the bottle. i'll get some of those to go home with eventually, but idk where to go after that. please help this FTM who has no clue anything about preemie babies!! thanks!!

Irishsapphire

My daughter went home on Sunday.  We are using the Dr Brown 4 oz bottles with size 1 nipples.  My daughter was originally using the green nipples with the Similac Advanced mini bottles, but I made sure they using the yellow niipples which is a faster flow for newborns before she left the hospital.  She has been doing good.  It is like I started with 1 oz every 3 hours, and then I have slowly added 1oz plus 1 more oz within the hour.  And now she is up to 2oz.  Dr Brown's has preemie size nipples in case the flow is too fast.  I will say this--it feels like my daughter is more of an eater during the night--she is like a party animal-smack, smack, smack--feed me--and I am like passing out.  But it is like you really have to pay attention to when they are really hungry. 

JuliaJAG

We have the Dr. Brown 4 oz. bottles with the regular (size 1) nipples too, and they work GREAT. We have the glass bottles because we prefer not to feed our baby (or ourselves) anything heated in plastic (even BPA-free plastic) when possible. The nipple is perfect -- no issues for our 29-weeker and he's been using them since he came home at 38 weeks. I've had the preemie nipples in my Amazon shopping cart for several weeks, but we haven't needed them.

Also, Dr. Brown's design is fabulous for preventing reflux and gassiness (very important to us since our LO had major problems with both those things until we switched to Dr. Brown's).

urbanflowerpot

We tried Dr Browns and Tippees but wound up sticking to what they used in NICU - the Evenflo nipple in green attached to the Medelas for pumping. Try to avoid trying lots of different bottles if the plan is to switch to BF. The less the better

DrRx

The NUK bottles worked for us when we first got home, but for the last week Dr. Brown's bottle have worked the best.  We started with the Level 1, but switched to Level 2 whn, per our pedi we started adding a little rice cereal to her feeds to help with some possible reflux and because she can't go over a certain amount of fluid a day. 

I have heard that using wide neck bottles are preferred when you want to also breast feed since it is more like a breast.  However, I didn't breast feed--just pumped BM.  

AlwaysSunny925

We transitioned Ryan to Dr. Browns bottles with a Level 1 nipple quite soon after he came home.  But if you don't feel comfortable you can actually order the hospital nipples online.  Good luck!

becketts

We use the Dr Browns bottles with the preemie nipple. 

DoingItRight

We use Dr. Browns bottles too. We started out with the size 1 nipples, but have moved to size 2 because of needing to add rice in the mixture.