How did you choose your formula?

[hunkermunker]

I'm just wondering how people choose the brand of formula they use? Were you swayed by advertising for follow-on milk? Friends? Off-the-record HV suggestion? Advertising in hospitals, clinics, etc? Or did you look at them on the shelf in the supermarket or do some other kind of research?

No real reason - just interested!

Not sure if this is the right place to post this subject?

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I don't, I breastfeed (and I'm NOT starting an argument about it!) - but I'm fascinated the loyalty to a particular brand of formula. I know you're not meant to chop and change between them, so just wondered how you chose in the first place. I'm just very nosey

You're right, where else would I post it - someone could've told DS about the extra hour this morning!

choose SMA. basically safeway didnt have much choice at the time. if i were to use formula again i'd probably try a different brand.

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Why not SMA yorkiegirl?
I chose Cow and Gate for much the same reasons as yorkiegirl. Brand recognition (turns out thats what my Mum gave us so maybe I sublimally remember my younger sisters having it or a leftover tin around the house). Have just started DD on it (5.5 months) for daytime feeds (which is what I did with DS) but am sticking with the ordinary first milk because I think the others might constipate her.

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SMA isn't Nestle - can't remember who they are now, but they're not Nestle.

We chose SMA when ds1 came of breastmilk at 8 months simply because both me and dh had SMA when we were babies and the tins were always lying around in our dad's garages filled with screws/nails/etc... subliminal messaging

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i used to work at safeway so was easy to pick up a tin after work. the clinic was miles away as well. the local chemist had more varity but only sold smaller tins so would work out more expensive.

Actually, I seem to remember that Nestle didn't do any baby milk in the UK at all ... not sure about follow on milk though.

SMA are part of Wyeth. I think that pretty much all the formula companies in the UK have some dodgy advertising practices in the third world, not just nestle.

Re:formula. DS was given SMA in hospital (Hospital did SMA or Cow and Gate, for some reason DS was mainly given SMA) so as he seemed OK on that, I carried on with that when I gave up bfing. I haven't bothered changing him to follow-on as don't want to constipate him/stodge him out needlessly, given that he has thrived on SMA Gold.

I don't remember ever making a concious choice iyswim. They used SMA in the hospital so we just kept on with it, but switched to SMA Gold very quickly because we felt she needed that bit extra, but the brand was not important to me really.

Jenni....do you mean you switched to White? The calorie content of White and Gold are more or less the same, but the White takes longer to digest, as it it is casein based.

hi I use aptimil- was recomended as most similar to breast milk by hv and nct friends. ds was fully breastfed- i only use formula for the odd bottle when i want to leave him with dh- i no longer seem able to express the way i used to!!

Only use formula for making up weetabix/porridge in the morning (dd2 now 10 months) or occasional bottles. I mix and match recklessly between brands (organic when I feel rich and/or virtuous, SMA/Cow and Gate when not) and dd2 doesn't appear to notice the difference. We even used up an (unopened) can of Nanny goatsmilk formula that someone passed on to us, with no objection from dd.

I also used Aptimil with breastfeeding at the start as that is what he had in hospital (was tube fed for a while)No DS at 10mths is soley on formula and I haven't changed from Aptimil.

I give my BF son the occasional bottle of formula and I picked SMA purely because it comes in a tin with a plastic lid. The other choices available at the shop did not come in a handy container so the choice was easily made.

Read a para in Mums on babies from somebody who struggled with bf and had no formula in the middle of the night, so bought a box of Cow and Gate when 6 months pregnant just so I had something. Bought it because the big tins looked much too big, thought the box would fit better on our kitchen shelf. never expected to use it.

DD1 very difficult to get onto formula from bf so tried them all. SMA Gold was the only one she would even remotely touch.

After bfing I gave her Cow and Gate - all because that's what we had when we were babies and when I was a little girl we used to have the old tin container full of buttons to play with if we'd been good. I was always fond of the fat little baby on the front. Recently I was clearing out the shed in my parents house - mum died a while ago - and I found the tin! Now it's safe at home with me waiting for when dd can play with buttons. (how soft am I?)

I stopped b/f at 4 months, a friend whose DD is 3 months older than my DS told me she'd tasted her breastmilk and found Cow and Gate to be the closest. I'd already tried ss on SMA and he hated it. I took her word for the Cow and Gate and DS was fine on it.

we did a taste test....! Can't remember what we tried first but dd wasn't having any of it (very very very difficult persuading her over to anything in a bottle when it was nearly time for me to go back to work so was trying everything I could think of).

Me and dh tried about 6 I think, including expressed breast milk. My health visitor had suggested if I liked the taste dd probably would. Probably didn't make the slightest difference but made me feel better about it at the time!

tiktok I do mean white am slowly cracking up

we used aptamil - simply because dd was born early and having EBM as well as something called pregestimil in hospital.... aptamil was recommended by the neonatal paed as being best for dd..... they did have a few choices in the hospital for mums to choose what they wanted to use.