Which bottles and formula to choose?

[tiredteddy]

Hi I'm expecting dc3 in January. I previously breastfed both my DS's but have since had a mastectomy so cannot breastfeed this time. I am 25 weeks now and thinking I should get organised this side of Christmas so I can relax after the festivities and before dc3 arrives. So I had a look around a very large boots and I am baffled by the choice!
Does anyone have any recommendations regarding bottles/ formula/ sterilisers?

I found the Dr Brown bottles really good, had some other brands too but my DD got less wind with these. A good piece of advice I got was not to bother with the smaller bottles as your little one will soon need a larger amount so you will need to buy bigger ones. We used SMA, had no problems with that. Good luck!

I also used SMA with DD and plan to do the same with this baby.

To be honest I really have never spent much time comparing bottles for price etc. But I used Avent bottles and the Avent electronic steam steriliser.

They have brought out a new shaped steriliser which is around £60 but I was hunting for the old shape and found it in mothercare for £40 :)

I was given boots own brand skinny bottles as a present for DD and used them as we were very cash strapped. Avoid like the plague. You need a wide neck bottle to avoid formula wastage and mess as the little scoops are quite wide!!

I found the small bottles good in the first weeks because of the smaller measures. So we have bought a starter pack £26 in toys r us, and it has two big and two small. There is also a small one free in the steriliser.

We intend to then buy four more big bottles as the steriliser holds six at a time!

HTH

Oh and avent have a new thing under the teats (new as in wasnt there 4 years ago :o ) which is supposed to help with wind.

DD never had any problems with wind though.

It doesn't really matter what brand of formula you pick, so go for one you can afford and can buy easily in your local shop. You might want to check the ingredients as some are halal and some not, I think some brands contain fish one brand is veggie I think? So depending on whether any of that is important to you have a look.

Im going to fly in the face if SMA convention here as it gave DS terrible constipation if we used the powder so being dim and sleep deprived first time parents we used ready made which eventually cost a blimmen tonne!! This time we are going with cow and gate.

Re bottles im drawn to the new mam anti colic... They come completely apart which apparently helps with wind through the magic of valves?! Funky colours too vain oh and cheap even better i had tommee tippee closer to nature last time and then with the spacer an they were pants!

Another vote for Dr Brown bottles.

Helped enormously with ds's colic. Expensive but compleatly worth it!

Oh and price wise on amazon ive found a starter newborn to toddler set (6 bottles plus dummy and tears and handles etc) for £20 odd, and the microwave steriliser (with two complete bottles, dummy tongs etc) for under £20

If you can afford it at the beginning, use ready made formula in cartons in the early days. Read up on the necessity of sterelising bottles (I never did it) and how to make up a feed safely, and think ahead about the way you'll do it when out and about. It is perfectly possible to make feeds up fresh on the go with a bit of preparation.

Another vote for Dr Browns. I started with Tommee Tippee as I got the starter pack with everything included but ds was very windy so we switched to Dr Browns. If I had heard about them in advance I would have got them from the beginning.

Tommy tipee have agreat deal on their steriliser and bottles, few other bits in set, think I seen deal in toys r us.

I used avent with dc1, breastfed dc2 couldn't get him onto a bottle, so when pg with dc3 the Tommy tipee closer to nature were only out, I bought them as I thought they would have been perfect with ds when I was trying to stop breast feeding
.I mixed fed with dd2 and she went between bf and sma really well with the closer to nature bottles.

I'll buy them again for dc4

Tommee tippee (phone keeps changing) have a wee valve insert now like the doctor browns bottles

Another vote for Dr Browns! We used aptamil and got on fine.

I used the TT inserts.. They are a bitch to clean properly and caused DS more issues, if you want one with inserts Dr browns are good, NUK are meant to be good too

Think the formulas are much of a muchness really, we use cow&gate. I use the ready mixed formula for night feeds and powdered during the day.

I like the avent bottles best (we tried tommee tippee and Dr Browns too), have a small steam steriliser but usually use Milton tablets & do cold water sterilising

Sma was the only one ds could get on with.... he had awful colic and reflux at first and we tried all the comfort milks and everything but normal sma suits him fine ! No more colic ! .. he did have green poo at first when we switched him but apparently that's nothing to worry about and it's back to yellow now.... nice !!!

I love my Milton cold water steriliser. It's just so handy. And cheap too. Got mine brand new from eBay for about a tenner.

Oh and avent bottles. :)

Aptamil is my favourite, dts had terrible constipation from sma

Cheap bottles with nuk latex teats for us as dtd has feeding problems so this was all that worked (nurse at hospital suggested them and thinks these "new fangled bottles" are a "total waste of money"!)

Must admit the babies do seem to feed very easily with them and hardly take in any air

Thanks all so far. So dr browns seem popular as do tommee tippee with mixed reviews. Does the steriliser have to match the brand of bottle for them to fit?

Recommend the hipp organic formula . It's been great for both of my children. For DD we bought the tommee tippee bottles that came recommended but ended up using playtex ones from the US ( DD was born there) that have a disposible sterile plastic bag thing you change every time . They are excellent in preventing colic and DD has hardly brought anything back up and has never seemed to suffer from wind :)!

With DS we used SMA until we found the hipp organic one and that seemed fine too . With DD she was first on similac while we were in the US .

SMA really disagreed with my DC. Cow and Gate was much more digestible.

I use AVENT bottles - but they have a tendency to randomly leak IME

... Sorry forgot , the tommee tippee electric steriliser is really good but not sure if it'd fit any bottles since we don't need to sterilise the bottles just the teats etc. due to using the sterile bags in our bottles . It's a roomy steriliser though and not an eye sore either , pretty neutral looking in the kitchen .

I use cow and gate with Avent bottles and have done since DS was born with no problems. I would use whatever feels right to you but whatever you do invest in a microwave steriliser - so quick and easy. 6 minutes to sterilised bottles and no weird Milton taste/smell. We managed to get a bottle feeding starter kit that had 6 bottles, a steriliser and a bottle bag in it at babies r us for a good price.

Forgot to say it's got to be an electric steam steriliser as no microwave in my very tiny kitchen!