Confused - MAM bottles, sterilising & sizes

[Oakie0]

Hi,
I’m hoping that someone with a bit of sense and or experience might be kind enough to help me as I am clueless! I am planning on breastfeeding at first if all goes to plan, including expressing and then move on to combi feeding. I have an elvie breast pump and tommee tippee perfect prep machine. I was planning on buying MAM bottles to make things easier but the more I research, the more questions I have and my head is spinning, could someone help me with the following questions please?

1. I planned to get the MAM bottles so I don’t need to buy a separate steriliser, but there are so many different bundles on their website, am I best to get a bundle of mixed bottle sizes, or just a pack of 3 of the smaller 160ml ones at first?

1. I don’t understand why there are so many different teat sizes in the bundles, is that to change them as the baby grows bigger? Some say size 1 slow flow, size 3 fast flow etc - do they beed slow flow when they are small and then faster flow as they grow? How would I know when to change to a different teat?

1. If I batch-sterilise say 4-6 MAM bottles at a time in the microwave, afterwards do I just shake any excess water left in the bottles from the microwave, and then re-assemble the bottles back together and can store them in a plastic storage tray in a cupboard for up to 48 hours?

1. Can I use a freshly sterilised MAM bottle straight from the microwave or does it need to cool down after sterilising? For expressed breast milk or making up a formula bottle.

1. Am I correct in understanding that if I express breast milk and then pour it directly from my pump in to a sterilised MAM bottle, I can put that straight in the fridge and use it in the next 5 days, and no need to heat up breast milk, it can be fed straight from the fridge, or left on the side for a while to come up to room temp?

1. Am I also correct in understanding that from when the baby is 6 months +, that bottles don’t need to be sterilised every time you use them?

1. As I’m not planning on buying a steriliser machine I’m thinking that it would it also be wise to have something like Milton cold water sterilising solution to sterilise my breast pump, or in the event of a power cut or if I need to sterilise other equipment, is this what others do?

Thanks in advance if you’ve got this far and are able to help!

1. I'd start with smaller ones first

1. Yes start with slower flow and then progress to faster flows as they get older - there's normally a general age guide on the teats too

1. Yes you can assemble sterilised bottles and use within 24 hours

1. I'd wait a few minutes until the bottle is cool enough to handle

1. Your baby may prefer to drink the breastmilk at a warmer temperature than cold/room temperature

1. Bottles used for formula should be sterilised up to 1 year. Not so important for breastmilk

1. Milton tablets/liquid would be handy for sterilising equipment and dummies if you use them

Thanks @dementedpixie it’s nice to have some reassurance!

1. I got a mix bundle.

1. Yeah start with the slowest flow, I moved mine up a teat size when they were taking ages to drink a bottle.

1. I let them cool, and then let them dry separately before putting the bottle back together.

1. You’ll need to let it cool

1. Yes all depends on the temp your baby likes it

1. Sterilised up to 12months for formula

1. Yes, I used Milton for a back up for whatever case

The faster flow ones just have more holes in the teat. I just stuck a pin in the top of thr teat and made another hole or two to speed up the flow as the baby got older.

I'd avoid buying any bundles until you're sure the baby will take that specific brand. I bought a whole set of tommee tippy bottles that my DC wouldn't take and also tried some nuby bottles which were also rejected as well as an own brand one that came with my manual pump. I'd maybe get one each of a few different brands and see which baby likes best, especially if you're breastfeeding as bf babies can be choosy if they're used to the feel and flow of a nipple.

You might struggle to give cold breast milk, not only the flavour but also the texture is very different cold. When in the fridge, mine always got a thick creamy layer on top which only mixed together when heating.

I've never formula fed so I can't help with the rest but I did use a steriliser that dried also which was great for dummies too.

Thanks for your replies.

Does anyone have any experience of heating MAM bottles from the fridge - I’ve read that if you put them in a bowl of warm water to warm them up, as the holes in the MAM bottles are at the bottom of the bottles then they might allow the unsterilised warm water in?

I used to heat up or cool down if doing the old fashioned way for bottle and never had any problems of water getting in.

If you are reheating milk in a bowl of warm water i would unscrew the lid to prevent water being sucked up the holes. If you kept the lids tightly on then it will suck up water through the holes. Also if you have a boots card and you join the boots parenting club, you get a voucher to get a free small mam bottle and dummy.

We used a nuby bottle warmer for our bottles (mam), was about £13 from argos.

Oh yes as @plantinggreen says, if you're putting the bottle in hot or cold water to stand then you need to remove the collar and teat otherwise water from the bowl gets sucked into the bottle and dilutes the milk. I only discovered this by accident when googling something else.

Mam bottles are rubbish for heating up in hot water. The water doesn't get in to the bottle itself, but it will gather inside the thread at the bottom of the bottle and when you tip it to feed the baby it will dribble out all over you.

We stopped using MAM bottles pretty fast because of this. A shame because I found them much easier to clean than others. It might be fine if you use a bottle warmer instead.

If you're combi feeding you stick with the slowest flow teat you can find. Also look into paced bottle feeding as this may be something you wish to do. Actually what I found is that the best thing for paced feeds is narrow neck bottles, as it allows you to tilt it less. So the brand we ended up using the most of was Nuk. I also had some teeny tiny ones like the ready made bottles that I was using for the first few weeks.

It was only ever water that flowed out, I would expect if it was getting into the bottle then diluted milk would have come out. Water won't get in the top unless you submerge it - why would you do that?

Thanks for your replies and advice.

I know I’m a naive first time mum but this all seems like so much faffing! I thought buying the mam bottles would make it easier meaning no need for a sterilising machine but it sounds like they come with their own extra issues too. I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to leave the house again 😳

The thing is unless you're only giving one bottle a day, it's going to be much more convenient to sterilise more than one at a time anyway.

After a couple of weeks we just improvised with a lunchbox TBH :o Stuck about half a centimetre of water in the bottom, didn't fully seal the lid, put the bottles/dummies we wanted to sterilise inside and microwaved for 5 minutes. It was the method that was given on the box for the dummies so I didn't see why it wouldn't work in another container.