Bottles - help!!

[MrsRV]

Hi all

I am planning to breast feed if I can but also want hubby to be able to feed so planning on expressing. Have been looking at bottles and have decided on these new Yoomi bottles with the warmer lid things! But, how many 5oz bottles to buy, how many 8oz bottles to buy, how many teats to buy (and which flow, slow medium or fast??)??? Help! I didn't realise there would be SO much choice... And this is just for bottles!?!

I would just buy a couple of the 8oz bottles for now (as long as they come with a slow flow teat).

one. one bottle if you really have to buy one. You shouldnt need an 8oz one. See here: www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/milkcalc.html But I would wait. Post this on the feeding section and you'll get lots of replies. (im typing under a baby so keeping it short)

U'll need more than one bottle incase it starts leaking or gets misplaced or the teat bursts. I would say if your BF by 2 small with slow flow teat then once babys there and how see how much you BF and how much you formula feed the you can go from there. Since your BF as well i'd buy a microwave steriliser instead of a big one.

Don't worry too much about bottles at this stage. It's not a great idea to express in the early days whilst your milk supply is sorting itself out, and even if you still want to do it after a few weeks, you may hate expressing and find it very uncomfortable (like me), and find that it can take ages to express enough for a single feed, far longer than it would take to simply breastfeed. Plus, no sterilising and storage issues to worry about.

I would definitely concentrate on getting breastfeeding established in the early days, and then you can see how you feel about expressing when things settle a bit.

If you get a pump (I had the Tommee Tippee manual one) it comes with a bottle anyway (bottle bit attaches to pump, you unscrew pump and screw on a teat)
If its literally only gonna be every so often, you wont need any more than this.

I started expressing at about 1 week to make sure DS would take a bottle, he did until about 3 months when he suddenly decided overnight that he wouldnt!
He then refused a bottle until 11 months! So dont feel that you have to do it early to make sure baby will take a bottle, as not even giving one will be 100% reliable [hgrin]

(and although I bought one for DS, I wouldnt get a steriliser and am not using one for DC2. So long as everything is washed thoroughly in hot water, it wont need to be sterilised. Your boobs arent sterile, are they [hwink] )

Unless you see something on sale, I wouldn't bother with bottles beforehand (I picked up a bargain Avent pump which came with a couple of bottles before I gave birth, but it could have waited for at least a month after). You will never really need more than 4oz bottles, 6oz at max.

Ideally you shouldn't introduce a bottle until baby is at least 6 weeks old to avoid nipple confusion. If you really need to miss a feed before then, then use expressed milk to cup feed (look it up) as this is less likely to mess with the baby's latch.

You should always, always use slow flow teats with breastfed babies, even when they get bigger. Moving to faster flow teats can make for lazy latches which can lead to a whole world of pain.

It is possible to have Dad doing the odd fed now and then when you need to be away for baby - or even just need an uninterrupted nap from 6 weeks. It's better not to be in baby's line of sight (or even range of smell) as some babies can get upset if mum is there but not feeding them. However for night feeds it isn't so useful in the early days as you need to get up and pump during the night anyway to keep your supply up.

Once I was back to work at 4m pp, I was expressing during the day so the garklet had nothing but breastmilk for the first year of his life (plus I built up a freezer stash when on mat leave). Having introduced a weekly bottle from 6 weeks onwards meant it wasn't such a shock for him when he had to have bottles more often.

Dude, those Yoomi bottles are SO expensive, plus the inserts "expire" and need chucking 3 months after you start using them. At £15 a pop you are way better waiting for now- if you ended up feeding with them full-time it would costyou a fortune (plus the warmable-inset thing takes 100 mins to charge and cool- fine if it's used for going out for the day but not something that's practical for a night feed!)

Most of the mums I know use Avent or Tommee Tippee bottles (about £4 each so lots cheaper) , but at this early stage I'd say just buy one or two 4 oz bottles with a newborn teat, plus some sort of steriliser (microwave ones or cold water ones are cheapest). Then wait until you see what you need!

I agree that you should only buy one or two and see how it goes, all babies have preferences, wait and see which ones he/she takes to best.

We worked our way through:
Avent (came free with sterlizer, good bottles, very small, handy for newborns)
Tommy Tippee (boob shaped teat, so supposed to avoid nipple confusion)
Dr Browns (to reduce wind/colic)
Mothercare Steriliser bottles (great for travel/convenience)

Once again, DONT buy a whole set now, wait until you know what you and your baby like and then buy in more later.

..oh and you dont need to buy separate teats, all bottles will come with the slowest flow ones, suitable for newborns, you can replace them with faster flowing ones later on, but you wont need to do that for a good few months, so dont worrry.