DR BROWN BOTTLES - HELP!

[JessicaandRebeccasmummy]

My friend has lent me 2 Dr Brown bottles to "try before i buy" and looking at them they are easy to put together etc BUT the heat bit at the bottom... what does it do? What colour does it change too? How do i know what it means?

SOMEONE HELP!

They are probably B-free bottles if they have the heat sensitive tips, JARM. (Smae thing, slightly different brand / packaging).

They are purple normally. When exposed to hot water / hot milk they turn pink telling you you are either washing them in the sink or you are about to burn your baby's mouth.

THey basically change for 'too hot'.

I have found the B-Free bottles to be better than the Doc Browns as they have the heat sensitive tip, Bisphenol-A free plastic (wtf ?) and have an additional slitted vent cap thingy which mean (IMHO) even less wind than Dr Brown's.

I started (an admittedly rather boring) thread on this maybe one month ago.

HTH

they saw dr brown on them.... confused!

they have a purple bit t the bottom which i assumed was a heat whotsit but what do i know?!

so as long as it stays purple its ok yeah???

and u think if i like the dr browns i should buy b-free??

god why are things so modern nowadays? what happened to the bog standard boots bottles?! LOL!

the purple is on the vent stick, right ?

like this

yep.... on the stick bit!

possibly Dr. Brown's are tweaking their design, I dunno.

Yes, I would recommend B-free as opposed to Dr Browns, but they're both better than unvented bottles of the free Avent ones with the steriliser (IMHO)... some are happy though.

Tomee Tippee and NUK have some nice venting systems IIRC.

Here's the old thread

I have bought from that B-free shop I linked to. Free P&P. Great phone service. Quick.

Thanks so much hub! You are a star!

Will deffo buy b-free if i get on with these, por little Rebecca is suffering so badly with her wind!

You can take the vent stick to the sink... turn on the hot water... run it over it... and prepare to be astounded...

They're like those jeans youngsters were wearing a few years ago that changed colours with their body heat IYSWIM.

We have 4 (I think) of the small bottles which I'd be happy to sell for half of whatever they cost on that site. (They're not really for sale, but if you want them, and money is tight, you are welcome to them). I would buy them again If / when we have another babba, but it means I don't need to store them in my smallish house.

Becky is starting to up her feeds now, so looking at getting the 8oz bottles rather than 4oz ones (little piggy is already taking 4oz!) but THANK YOU for the offer.

Pay day on Wedensday so will get some then. I assume you have to buy the teats seperately?

Cool. Stick with the big bottles. No prob at all. If you buy a '4 pack' for example you will get four teats.... (however they will be Stage 1 / slow flow for 0 - 3 months)

However, we found that at a certain stage (I dunno - say 16 weeks ???) a 'Stage 2 teat' (medium flow) was better because otherwise the feed was taking forever. At first the increased flow surprises the baby but they'll get used to it and (assuming they are ready for this faster flow) the feed is smoother, less wind etc.

When I bought the big bottles I also ordered Stage 2 teats and even Stage 3 / Fast Flow teats too. Finally, I think they do a 'slit teat' or sommit like that to accommodate baby rice etc. in the mlik.

HTH

PS - as P&P is free, you might want to just get one bottle and see how you go, or buy the teats later etc. etc.

Hub... if you are out there I NEED HELP!

Had my bif b-free bottles delivered yesterday - they have an extra blue squidgy bit - do i take it off before feeding because with it, it is letting air in - ARGGGGH!

Hi,

The blue squidgy bit goes on the green vent reservoir sticky-out stumpy bit. You then put the vent tube with the funky purple bit on. It stays on for the feed. You only take it off when you are washing all the bits..

It is supposed to let air in from the outside to the bottle, thus equalizing the pressure and preventing the creation of a vacuum.

Having said that, the Dr. Brown's don't have this blue bit, so if it bugs you, you could opt to not use it. Personally, I would never do this as i feel it works well and enhances the bottle.

HTH

ta for replying hub.... the thing is with it on, it is causing the teat to collapse?! Will try again though, have taken them off for now but thanks for all your help - you are a STAR!

erm, hub the slit teat IS NOT for rice. if you posistion the teat slit like - in babies mouth its a slow flow, if you position like | its a fast flow. HTH.

[mumbles about rice in bottles tsk]

Blimey just stick with boots/avent ones!

We have big Dr Browns kicking about somewhere in our kitchen - they leaked when we were out, the stupid purple stick is useless and DS hated the teats cos they were too long and thin and not at all nipple shaped and they collapsed in 5 seconds rant over!

FA - becky loves the dr browns! agree about leaking, but normal stoppers fit and stop that! would never put rice in a bottle anyway so dont panic misdee!

misdee, I am trying to purée a big mac so I can get in it my bottle and mix it with milk. Can you help ?

LOL: The blue slit thingy is an air vent cover; it goes inside the bottle.

JARM - I think you get teat collapse when Rebecca is trying to get more milk out than air can get in (thus creating a vacuum) and the teat gets sucked into itself / the bottle IYSWIM...

I would guess that this would occur more frequently WITHOUT the blue slitted thing.

Possibly moving to a stage two teat (medium flow) might allow her the increased flow with a more moderate suck IYSWIM.

HTH

PS - FAS - Avent ones have poor vent / pressure equalisation capability IMHO. When we used them we were forver pausing in feeds, catching burps, getting collapsed nipples, getting loads of air bubbles through the milk etc... all added up to worse wind. The B-Free bottles were much better for this (for us anyway). I concede that we introduced them only around 4 - 6 weeks IIRC, a time when wind becomes less of a problem anyway, so it can be hard to know for sure that it was the bottle creating the improvement IYSWIM.

thanks hub.... will try her on stage 2 teats - got some of those from a friend, although i think the problem was i was putting the blue squidgy thing on too far, because i tried again last night and we were back to normal!

Roll on the day i can get rid of bottles - GRRRR! Even Jessica at 16 months is still having at least 2 bottles a day!!!

No prob. FWIW, when we moved from stage 1 to stage 2 teats, the first few feeds involved considerably more dribble and milk spillage, LOL as dd wasn't used to the flow, but she was happier on them very quickly.

Your blue squidgy thing, after you push it on the reservoir protruberance, should still have its little blue 'ears' just sticking out of the green surround.... I think it would be fairly hard to push it on too far !!!

when they arrived they were pushed all the way on, but i have put them back on with the "ears" hanging over a bit and its working wonderfully well!

Will try stage 2 at the next feed and see how we get on!

Not sure if this has already been said but B free and Dr Browns are the same bottles, company just re-branded them a few months ago to B Free, they have just added the little blue bit which i never us, as the older bottle I have don't have it and it falls through the holesa in the steriliser - does not seem to make any difference, I have always used these bottles and they are much better than any others IMO.

For 16 month I would use the fastest teat though think it is stage 3 - changed DS onto these at about 9 months I think.

Also re: coloured bit, I have found that after lots of sterilising/ going in dishwasher they stop working and become permenantly pink, must be something to do with the high temperatures

Hope this is of some help

Melrose, Jessica isnt using b-free's/dr browns - its REbecca - she's 6 weeks old!!

Sorry, reading thread too fast!

Also meant to add to make sure you use the little brush thing they send to clean the holes in the sides of the green bit (we didn't to start with and got all gunky!)