Hey all. I am about to have a baby in a week or 2. Im confused about all these bottles on the market though. I have a 7 year old, but when he was born, there were few choices bottlewise. There were only (at least in my area) those plain old gerber ones (no high-tech bends on them or anything) and those playtex disposables. I used the plain old gerber ones mostly because they looked simple and the disposable thingys on the other bottles looked way too messy and complicated. I never had a problem with them. I mean, he got a ton of ear infections, but that was my fault cause I was recently divorced when he was only a few months old and I was soooo tired from working 12 hour days that at times he would fall asleep in his crib with a bottle. (oops).
Now, they have so many different kinds of bottles that it just baffles me!! I bought those ventair ones, but I am returning them because it says on the box that you shouldnt use a bottle warmer with them (didnt read the box before buying them, but they are cute bottles - not exactly a good reason to buy them, I know). But all the other bottles (dr brown, avent, etc) all say that they are great for breastfed babies.....What about if you arent breastfeeding???? I dont know if I will be or not. With my son, I didnt because my milk never came in - so its iffy with this one as well.
Does anyone have any suggestions of recommendations for bottles? Why do they gotta make this so freaking confusing???

Thanks,
Jen :)

I'm sure that bottles that are good for breastfed babies would work great for bottle fed babies also. You should probably get this kind in case your milk does come in, because breastmilk is so amazingly good for your baby. I breastfeed and used the Avent bottles. I like all of the interchangable parts. You can use the bottles with the sippy cup attachment for when they are older. Also you can also chose the number of holes in the nipple to determine the flow.

Congrats on your pregnancy!!

Good luck,
Melissa

I'd say use whichever ones. I used evenflo with a little bend in them, they were fine...and cheap! I didn't breastfeed...


April

I use Avent bottles and Im not breastfeeding, they are the only teats Gabby likes :) So now she's growing out of the 4oz bottles I'm using the tops and teats on the other bottles I got before she was born as well as the Avent ones :)

I have a 10 year old and a 4 month old -- I understand! When I had my first son I used the playtex disposables at first but then switched to the gerber ones. I was forever sterilizing everything but felt it was worth it because the nipples were far better, plus the playtex ones always seemed to leak. This time around I started out with the playtex again (gift) and was certain I'd end up switching, but I have not. Not only can you not beat the ease (no need to sterilize anything, only the nipples before first use) but playtex has new nipples now that are great (NaturaLatch), and drop in liners that do not leak!

Just so you know I use the Ventaire ones... actually in Canada they are called playtex advance... same bottles... anyways.. we use a bottle warmer with them and they are fine.. I find the bottles great.. our little one has hardly any gas... easier to clean since they open both ways too...if I were u .. i'd go back and get them.. lol..

I used gerber nuk nipples in silicone and latex . They were recommended by a lactation consultant since I was breast and formula feeding. They worked well for my kids. Good luck to you.

Kathy

We used a special bottle that we got from the hospital (a Haberman I think it was called) to help our little one learn to suck better. Then we started using regular evenflo bottles. We did switch to Dr. Brown's bottles to reduce gas and because we thought he might have colic and those are supposed to work good for that. The Dr. Brown's bottles seemed to help a little with the gas but they are pretty high maintenance bottles because they have a lot of parts. Our little one is now 2 months old and we use any kind of bottle that is clean :) (usually an airvent or evenflo)

I've been thru the bottle mill and my son is only 5 weeks old! I had bought all the playtex ventaire bottles, but he had a lot of trouble with those - gas and getting to much formula. We switched to the playtex nurser 4 oz. bottles. We use the drop in liners which are very clean, quick, and easy. It's nice because you can squeeze all the air out. We had trouble finding the right nipple. We ended up with the Gerber Nuk orthodontic nipples that fit on disposable bottles. Seems to be working okay now. Good Luck!

MamaRockStar - I'm very interested in what you said about using the Gerber Nuk with a disposable bottle. The platex disposable bottles are wide and the nuk nipple is small, isn't it? Where did you find the nuk nipple that works with the disposable?

I love the ease of the disposable!! but I'm not that thrilled with the natural latch nipple. My DS is breastfeeding and doesn't know what to do with that long round nipple end. The nuk nipples seem more like a breast nipple to me.

Ok my little girl is now 7 months old and we went through some bottles. We started out with the Avent because i want to breastfeed, but she wasn't taken to me and she was jandice. So i had to pump to get her food. We did those for a little bit. Then we went to the Dr. Brown's bottles. We found out she had reflux and thought these would be better for that. The are great bottle, but like someone else said every high maintance. We ended up using the playtex nurser with the drop in liners. Loved those bottles. We always bought the nipples that went with the bottle that where wider. Like the avent bottle. That is the only nipple she would take to. She would take to the skinny nipples. Anyways the playtex nursers where the best of the three bottles that we used. Very low maintaince. Which is so great when you taken care of a little one. If your to tired to clean bottles and then baby get hungry then want to eat then. So the playtex nursers are great. You only have to clean the nipple and then drop in a liner, make up the milk, and then push out the air. Great bottles. Love them.

I was sooo worried I'd have a colicky baby before ds was born 'cuz years ago I babysat a child with colick who drove me nuts. So I got a couple ventair and avent. The ventair was too slow for him and he didn't like the avent ones. Ended up with good old fashioned plastic gerber bottles and the medium flow silicone NUK nipples.

i like the dr. browns. i started with gerber, then advent, then vent air.. i refuse to do the bags... dr. browns even though it's high matience... is better for my DS.. he likes them he doesn't have as much gas and we haven't had any problems with colic. i also like the travel top that it comes iwth... if you can stand the washing it's worth it to me.