Avent vs Tomee Tippee bottles & steriliser

[TransatlanticCityGirl]

I'm planning to breastfeed but definitely want to express so that DH can feed sometimes too. We're trying to decide which brand bottle & microwave steriliser to buy and are torn between Avent and Tomee Tippee.

It's quite important to us that baby can transition from breast to bottle and back to breast easily, and the TT ones look a bit more like a breast so maybe better? But I'm assuming here...

However Avent are almost half the price and you can fit 6 bottles in the microwave steriliser vs 4 TT. (I'm presuming you don't have to have the same brand steriliser, right?)

Any thoughts / views?

I breastfed and expressed very small amounts. I used tt bottles and dd took to them fine and back to boob. Remember that when your breast feeding you ideally feed on demand to establish supply. If you want dh to help by feeding expressed milk you prob only use one or two bottles so the fact that avent fits more bottles may not be an advantage.

Just to add that my steriliser was mostly full of breast pump parts and dummies rather than actual bottles as breastfeeding went well. So if your intent on feeding maybe room for your breast pump in your steriliser is key. You can also put bottles in the dishwasher if you have them.

Tt have these amazing little canisters to put formula powder in (I know you are planning EBF but I mixed fed from 4 months) so have a look at those too!!!
Steriliser takes 5 mins honest you won't notice you're even doing it!!

Really, they can go in the dishwasher? For some reason I thought you must sterilise them with a steriliser. Dishwasher sounds much easier!

Apparently in Germany they don't use sterilisers!! Home of Bosch etc?!?
But yes!! The dishwasher steams far far longer than a bottle steriliser would!

Yeah in the top tray but don't put the teats in when you've made bolognese or they all cone out orange. Lesson learned here.

i FF, however, of my friends who successfully gave both bottle and boob, the one who used TT was very successful, the two who used avent had lots of problems getting babies to take bottle. I think in the US they use dishwasher to sterilise. However, if you have anything that might stain in the dishwasher (plates with curry or bolognese etc on) it will stain your bottles. Oh, and if you get the TT steriliser that plugs in it does hold 6 TT bottles. Washing and sterilising is much faster than the dishwasher, so less waiting (you can boil the kettle when you start washing, open the kettle lid as soon as it has boiled so it cools down faster, and then make bottles as soon as sterilsed bottles cool enough to touch, total about 15 mins including cooling, much faster than a dishwasher).

Veteran expresser here. Get Medela bottles. If you're planning to express, only medela bottles fit the medela swing pump, and it's cheaper to store the EBM in the bottles and reuse them rather than the one-use breastmilk bags. Baby loves the medela teats. The only other teat he will take is the Yoomii.

We have an avent steriliser which works perfectly well, but much of the time we just put them through the dishwasher.

Forgot to say medela bottles fit fine in the avent steriliser.

I used Tommee Tippee bottles and I mix fed my daughter with no nipple-teat problems! I'd always go TT!

I really thought the dishwasher was just to wash them, didn't realise it sterilised!

I use all Avent stuff - steriliser, bottles, pump, storage pots. Get the most expensive steriliser - they look similar, but the expensive one you only have to refresh the water once a day not every time you run it, plus it is 6 mins not 8, makes a world of difference when you have no sterile teats and a screaming baby!

the best teats ive found are the NUK brand. Work very well with the breast&no nipple confusion,anti colic latex.bottles fit in my tt steriliser& have a medela pump with storage bottles. i boil everthing for a few mins if ive got the time.otherwise its the steriliser.

If you are expressing you will only need one bottle and one teat. Assuming you are going to give more than one bottle a day. I use Milton tablets and it's easier than microwave ones. (I fill half the Milton bucket only and it's mostly parts of the breast pump. I also store the dummy inside. I store the expressed milk in medala bottles and just pump enough for one feed at a time. However I did buy extra medala storage bottles just in case. I use the medala swing pump btw.

As for avent vs tt. I can say my DD hates avent. She will drink from it but only with a very unhappy look and she unlatches the bottle and cries all the time. (she is about 3-4 times slower on the bottle then the breast. I am contemplating getting tt after the good reviews on mumsnet. Just not sure to get slow flow teats or variflow ones.

Thank you all, this is super helpful.

Beanlet, I didn't know that only Madela bottles fit their pump.

I think we're going to stick with the Avent Microwave steriliser (as it's the cheapest - £10 on amazon), get a two pack of Tommee Tippee bottles, and a three pack of Madela bottles for storage purposes. That should be more than enough by the sounds of it.

Only narrow neck bottles fit medela pumps - so even bottles from the pound shop fit if they are narrow neck not wide neck ones.

You can also get NUK teats in our local poundland which you could replace the other teats with if you liked.

Also, don't forget you don't need to sterilise your pump each time you use it just once a day. If you plan to use it multiple times a day (which you might as a lot of women need to express more than once to make a feed up), you can either stick it in a zip lock and put int he fridge or wash out with hot soapy water.

If you want to go really low tech on the sterilising front (even more than ice cream tub and milton) you can sterilise by boiling on the hob for 5 mins in a large saucepan. Really useful if you/baby ever get thrush as you need to boil pump/dummies/teats/bottles to kill the thrush organism (Milton/steam don't work on thrush), though fingers crossed you won't.