How many bottles?

dogperson11 · February 2014

FTM here and I'm trying to figure out how many bottles I should have on hand. I plan to EBF but I will be returning to work about 20-30 hours/ week so I will be pumping. Also, do I even bother with the small 4 oz ones or stick to the 9 oz ones? Thanks, ladies!

FmrAFBrat · February 2014

If you are EBF I wouldn't stock up on one particular brand. I would buy a few 2 or 3 packs until you know what baby takes. I made the mistake of stocking up on new bottles that were the same brand DS1 used and ended up buying an entire other new set when DS2 refused them and we needed a different brand.

I would just get the smaller bottles. A lot of the smaller bottles are 5-6 ounces, so if you breastfeed you will be fine. I would get 5 for your home and 5 for your childcare provider.

LittleApple · February 2014

I would just start off with one of a couple different kinds. Then when baby decides which one he/she likes, get about 10- 9 oz. bottles.

slwprincess · February 2014

We really only ever used the small bottles. BF babies typically only take up to 5 oz at a time. I agree about not buying a ton- or if you do, don't open the box. I've got maybe 10 total- Avent and Playtex brands but they are left from previous babies. you could get by with less.

=Lee=B · February 2014

As others have said, wait until your baby lets you know what bottles he/she will accept. The large bottles are too large for breastmilk but most small bottles are too small. The medela bottles hold 5oz which is what most babies max out at with breastmilk. My daughter never went beyond 4oz as she fed smaller amount more often...so any small bottle would work for her. So, again I'd wait until shortly before you go back to work and get what your baby likes most.

BBColt78 · February 2014

Great advice on buying up above. Also to ditto PPs, My DD never drank more than 5oz per session, so we stuck with smaller ones.

One thing I remember with daycare friends: They made sure to invest in some of the inexpensive brands first and see if baby would take those. Then when they had to send 5 to daycare, they weren't the expensive ones. I have two friends who swear by their purchase of Walmart brand. My only suggestion would be to stick with silicone nipples and make sure the plastics are BPA and other chemical free.

laurel22 · February 2014

Yes to most of the previous info. Buy/register for a couple different brands first and try them out before committing. I would recommend trying easier to clean bottles first (Avent, for example) to see if your baby is OK with any air that gets in the milk before trying the "anti-colic" bottles like Dr. Brown's, which are amazing but a huge PITA to clean (if you do get Dr. Brown's bottles, buy the wide-mouth ones, not the regular ones).

Personally, I would only buy 9 oz bottles. I BF'd through the first 6 months, and DS quickly flew through the 4 oz bottles and was already up to about 5.5 oz per feed by the time I went back to work at 12 weeks. I don't know how long you plan to EBF, but if you switch over to formula or regular milk eventually, the baby will drink a lot more than 4 oz at a time. I don't really think there's much advantage to the small bottles other than they're easier for some people to hold.

ETA: Interesting... I just noticed I'm in the minority with the bottle size preference. I guess DS just ate a lot pretty early, so we thought the small bottles were kind of a waste. But we didn't NOT use the 4 oz bottles, and it was nice to have a couple of them to start, but we didn't use them at all after about 10 weeks. I wish they made the small bottles in a 6 oz size instead of 4 oz!

FmrAFBrat · February 2014

@laurel22 Nuby makes both 7 and 10 ounce bottles. I had never heard of them until I saw them at daycare. I haven't used them personally so I'm not sure if they are good, but they are cute.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002USCHX8?cache=b8ff0cff5578033cf3d370b4ca7b16bf&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70#ref=mp_s_a_1_4&qid=1391488480&sr=8-4

LittleFish1 · February 2014

We had the small dr brown bottles (bit of pain with all the parts though). LO still BFs and for her water sippy cup she still keeps it to under 5 oz for her needs. Some BF babies drink more at a time once past 6 months, others don't. Agree with others to only get a few of any particular type until you know that is what LO will take.

Would get something with same collar size as your pump though - then you can pump directly into the bottle (one less thing to clean that way).

laurel22 · February 2014

FmrAFBrat said:

@laurel22 Nuby makes both 7 and 10 ounce bottles. I had never heard of them until I saw them at daycare. I haven't used them personally so I'm not sure if they are good, but they are cute. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002USCHX8?cache=b8ff0cff5578033cf3d370b4ca7b16bf&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70#ref=mp_s_a_1_4&qid=1391488480&sr=8-4

Good to know! Thanks! I'm looking into new bottles for DS2. Our old ones are pretty beat up and the brand we used 3 years ago is really hard to find now (ThinkBaby). I'm thinking of trying the Kiinde system this time - it seems really convenient, particularly for working moms like myself who have to pump a lot.

BabyMayinMarch · February 2014

We planned on BF, but ended up FF shortly after DS birth. We started off with 8 4oz bottles, and then once he was drinking more, bought 6 8oz bottles.

hollygb22 · February 2014

Completely agree with the others. We had a three pack of Born Free and DD just refused to drink out of them. Same with Avent, Tommy Tippee...she would finally take a Dr. Brown's. I wouldn't buy any huge feeding set and just stick with a 3 pack until you know they'll take that bottle.

Once we figured out what bottle she would drink from, I believe I had 12 of them. I would pump directly into the bottles, so 2 went to work with me and 3 went to daycare. It was nice to have extra so I didn't absolutely have to wash bottles each night.

AprilBJune · February 2014

I agree with everyone! I made the mistake of buying everything Tommee Tippee because they had good reviews. My son had a tounge tie and creates air bubbles in the tommee bottles which upsets his tummy. So I just had to order DR. Browns because they work soo much better for us.

dmurrie · February 2014

I'm going to differ from most here and recommend trying to go with the same brand as your pump, if the baby will take them. For Medela at least, you can pump directly into the bottles. Of course, you eould need more bottles to do this, but the bags were annoying and cumbersome to me. Also, if you're going to do a combination of BF and pumping, my LC said to try to stick with slow flow nipples so the baby wouldn't start to prefer the bottles over the boobs. I don't have a good reference point for how many of each bottle. Our toddler was always a very finicky eater, so we almost didn't use the 8/9 oz bottles at all. You can slways syart out with the 4 ounce and move up if you want. That being said, you can partially fill the large bottles if you want to. Eh. Either way. The hospital may give you some colostrum bottles and/or 2 ounce bottles to take home with you, too. Depending on your supply, the 2 ounce can also be good to pump into.

opaque1997 · February 2014

I didn't read everyones responses but I can share a few things.. one decide how often you want to wash bottles - I prefered my dishwasher to do it so I made sure I had 3 -4 days worth of bottles - for me this was about 16 bottles. A g/f hand washed hers (she still doesn't use the dishwasher most days!) and thus she kept 6 on hand as she just washed every night

I pumped into the bottles I fed out of - but if you don't keep that in mind (that you'd want storage bottles and feeding bottles)

IF you go to the bigger size (its what I did

) - watch the nipple stage. Some BF moms find that a faster nipple hurts their nursing relationship because the baby gets used to getting milk fast and the breast can't mimic it. Most of the time the larger bottles come standard with nipple size 2 or medium / fast. We had to retrofit with all size 1

I second, triple, etc the recommendation to not invest in a whole stock until your baby takes whatever bottle.. we quickly found my daughter would drink milk from a dirty shoe and thus we were able to choose which bottles - but my cousins baby rejected 15 kinds and finally off handedly found one brand and only one brand she would take..

JilllyBean · March 2014

I don't know why people recommend the small bottles. If I were doing it over I would have only bought large. I EBF for the first 6m but now we FF and use frozen BM. He takes 5oz most times but before bed and in the morning he will take 6-7oz. I would not want to pump into bottles I use to feed. You are never going to be pumping the exact amount your kid eats, plus it's soooo much easier to store and warm up in bags (target up and up are the best). If you are successful BFing and pumping you will need a bunch of those bottles too. They are pretty cheap though.

jess9802 · March 2014

I pumped into the 5oz bottles that came with the pump kit. After each pump session I would transfer the milk into a storage bag. If I wasn't using the milk the next day the bag went into the freezer. I washed those bottles each night along with all of my pump parts. If you would rather not hand wash nightly you may want four pumping bottles and two sets of flanges, valves, etc.

I had another four 5oz Medela bottles (with slow flow nippes) that DS ate from each day, and we either handwashed or washed in the dishwasher each night. I can count on one hand the number of times DS took more than 5oz at a feeding in the year I was pumping at work. We never needed larger bottles.

I think next time I will not be so cheap and stubbborn and will probably have two days' worth of bottles and pump parts because it got annoying to have to handwash everything each night.

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