Clueless about feeding bottles. Need help!

[Gingerbreadpixie]

I'm not sure what bottles/steriliser I need for my first baby's arrival. I am intending to BF and express so DH can join in the feeding but I don't want to be totally unprepared if for any reason I'm unable to. So I'd like to have a few bits for FF too on standby.

My main questions are:

Can expressed breast milk and formula both go in the same type of bottle with the same type of teat? Do newborns generally need slow flow teats?

Do all types of bottles fit in all sterilisers? Or do I have to stick with the brand of steriliser I buy? Is there one brand that's more universal than others?

What size bottles should I buy?

Are anti colic bottles wirth paying extra for?

I really want a medela electric breast pump (swing or mini). Do I need to buy medela bottles or can I use a different type?

I hope I don't sound too stupid, it was really overwhelming to stand in the baby bottle/steriliser aisle and not have a clue today!

I had MAM self sterilising bottles, they were fab! You put them all inside each other and microwave them. Great for colic too, loved them. They came in all different sizes and teats you can buy too. I used the same teats for formula and bm and then used bigger ones as needed

here they are

You'll need a medula bottle to fit onto the swing I think but you can always decant into another sterilised bottle (as long as you do that in a sterile sort of way).

As didireally says if you want the medula pump then u need to.buy the same bottles ideally. I have bought avent ones but my best mate uses.medula ones and loves them.

Teats have a stage guide on them so pop into.ur local boots or mothercare and have a look see xxx

Thanks. I've found a bottle feeding guide and will ask in mothercare!

The MAM ones are reduced in Tesco and Amazon to £14 so worth buying x

Some points - if breastfeeding is going well try wait a few weeks (I think advice is 6?) before introducing bottles as they can be "easier" than the breast (even with slow flow) so put the baby off breastfeeding. SO yes slow teat. Also actual breastfeeding is best way to establish the best supply and demand relationship between the amount of milk you produce and the amount your baby needs. So they will feed more and stimulate milk production. So sometimes "getting a break in the night" isn't an amazing break because your boobs have adapted to feeding in the night and get full and uncomfortable.

If you express at a certain time every day your boobs may start to produce at that time IYSWIM.

Expressing in the morning is easier than the afternoon.

Its easier to expres from one side if you are actually feeding the baby on the other side as the let down reflex comes really easily.

Kelly mom website has loads of information about breastfeeding and a section about how to bottle feed on demand.

We got on fine with Avent (old fashioned type bottles) - and used small ones when little.

I really recommend"The food of love" as great book of advice on breastfeeding

There is a good La LEche league one as well that lots of friends really recommend.

Congratulations - hope it goes well.

Just following on from what woodifer said, try not to leave it too long to introduce bottles if you want baby to take a bottle. We waited 8 weeks, and it took 2 months for dd to eventually take a bottle. She was ebf but I wanted the option of her being able to take a bottle if she ended it, on one occasion I had a horrific vommitting bug and the doctor advised me to nt breast feed - with to use formula or expressed breast milk as the bug may have passedt through the milk. I was very pleased dd could take a bottle at this point.

I have the asda little angels steriliser, avent bottle warmer and avent bottle, the older shape not the ones they have just brought out and they all work fine together :)

I'm due with no.2 in 7 weeks so will be using the same stuff + getting avent bottles again.. Never leaked and easy to clean and hold

Yes, don't wait too long.
Our ds had tongue tie at birth so a different situation, but he had a bottle of expressed before bed from 2 weeks. Meant my dh could help, but also I knew ds was getting a guaranteed amount. His tie was cut at 12 days old, so we had to bottle feed as he wasn't suckling me as I just poured! He therefore wasn't getting any hind milk.The bottle taught him how to suckle iykwim?

And newborns only have 3/4 Oz but it progresses quickly ime to wanting more so I would get a few (3?) 125ml bottles and then the rest (6/8) 260ml

HTH

Thank you all. I need all the help I can get! :D

Oh and bottle warmers are pointless imo

re teat sizes our midwife said that the number one flow teats can frustrate some babies. ive started both of mine straight onto mid flow teats.

Everything woodifier said

icamefromouterspace sounds like poor advice from your GP there about the bug passing on to your baby via milk. It's actually the opposite, you would have passed on an antibody of the virus that you had. It's amazing what your body can do (although feeding when ill is bloody awful, so respect your decision to hand baby over so you get some rest )

OP - it is good to be prepared but I wanted to add to Woodifer's post: letting DH give a bottle to 'bond' isn't really necessary. There are tons of ways he can bond, feeding is just one of them (bath time, cuddles, bed time, skin to skin time, singing, stories, walks etc etc).

Breastfeeding isn't always easy- neither of you have done it before and you have to learn to do it. There is literature on nipple confusion if a bottle is introduced too early; ikewise, there loads of anecdotal evidence that not introducing a bottle means baby won't take one (or in my case, dd taking one in the early days then still refusing later down the line anyway!)

I personally found pumping milk for DP to give a bottle was counter productive to the benefits I liked about bf (on tap food at the right temperature!) We had the same thought process as you and intended for DP to give expressed milk once a day. We squashed it on the head after 5 days as it was an absolute faff and messed up my supply by producing more milk than I needed (then got engorged and uncomfortable!). Just thought I'd offer my experience so you can keep an open mind.

Bf has health benefits but the convenience for me was one of the best benefits!

To be fair fad I could barely keep my head up I was vomitting so much and not keeping water down, so I would've gave dd a bottle regardless..she only had about 3 bottles in that time, but I really was in no if state to even hold her at my worst.

I think standard width bottles fit onto the Medela swing. I used this to exclusively express and I only had the bottle that came with it so must have used some other sort of bottle to store milk in!!

Thanks for the input. It's feeling a bit less daunting now. :)

As said above, if you do want to breast feed wait until you've got that properly established before introducing a bottle. Lots of heart ache from 2 girls in my Nct group as once they introduced a bottle (ebm) their babies then refused the breast. Despite lots of expressing their supplies very quickly reduced.

I intended to express but found it all such a faff that the breastfeeding was actually easier. The times I managed, I'd still wake in the night with very painful engorged breasts, which sort of defeated the purpose.

I still found having a pump useful but don't go crazy spending lots of bottles that you might not need (like we did!).

Can I just pick you up on 'bf and express so DH can join in the feeding'?

Of course, of course, if you want to express down the line you can do. It can be useful. But don't put pressure on yourself to 'let your DH have a turn'. I think that the importance of feeding as a bonding thing for dads is part of the pressure to ff that the formula companies drip fed into popular culture. If you bf and your DH did everything else, guess who the baby would see more of?

I would say that, if you want to bf, your first focus should be on that. Once you are, say, 6 weeks in, if all is going well and everyone is happy then introduce a bottle if you still want to. But putting pressure on yourself that this is a step you need to take can be counter productive and an extra source of stress at what might be a stressful time (especially with a first baby!). Also, if you are expressing more than about one bottle a day, it is a massive additional workload (just look at some of the superhuman efforts of mums on here who exclusively express for evidence of that).

On kit, there is no need to buy a steriliser up front. If you want to try expressing, or need to ff for some reason, boiling in a pan old-school style is perfectly ok. Or steriliser tablets if you prefer (but I'm less keen on the chemicals). I bought one, and for the tiny amount I ended up expressing, it was a total waste of money. Gave it away in the end. By all means research sterilisers, work out which you will buy if you want one and where the best price is, but I'd hold off buying it. This applies to a lot of baby kit actually!

On pumps, I say this every time, but if you are thinking of getting a Medela please have a read about open and closed systems. Here is very good information about why it is an especially bad idea to get an open system second hand.

Just to add, ime the feeding = bonding thing is a complete pile. Both my girls have bonded with DH fabulously well, despite him never having given either of them a bottle until at least six months when I've gone back to work. They have both seemed to appreciate the 'not-milk person' who they can bet cuddles and help from without the milk pressure being there.

I too think the bonding = feeding idea is from formula companies tbh. The best thing your partner can do is literally everything else and give you the time to establish breastfeeding with your new baby.

We've put almost no effort into bottles with our second and its been lovely. At 7m she happily takes one if I'm not around. she's close with DH, and that will only grow over time, in the same way it did with my first. Good luck! Xxx

can't recommend these enough I used to bottle bags of milk to freeze every day just by putting one on the opposite side to where I was feeding. It was such a waste otherwise

I didn't wear them out, as they're not very discreet!