Baby Bottles!!!

Today I'll talk about the ever exciting world of baby bottles. Whether you are all breast milk (and pumping), all formula, or a combo of the two, bottles are important! The good news is that they are all pretty similar in the way of bottle technology so it is really unlikely that you are going to make a horrible decision about bottles! Just pick whichever one seams coolest and easiest to you and you will be okay! If it is a tough decision for you at the moment, I hope today's blog will help a little :)

With my first kid, I used Dr. Brown's Natural Flow 8oz. wide-neck bottles and Born Free 5oz wide-neck bottles... A friend of ours made fun of me for buying these fat bottles with such big nipples! He couldn't help himself making jokes about our bottles with the "big nipples" every time he was around.  The wide-neck bottles were new at that time, and the popular bottle on the market was Dr. Brown's Natural Flow (regular tall skinny bottles).  I loved the bottles I chose... below is a picture of our Dr. Brown's on the left, Born Free in the middle, and the new ones I am trying for baby #2, Avent brand on the right... Please note that the green and blue nipples for the Dr. Brown's and Born Free are not the baby nipple attachments; they are sippy cup trainer attachments for older kids. We still use the bottles as sippy cups sometimes for our 3-year-old because she wouldn't drink milk out of anything besides a bottle until recently, so the sippy cup "nipple" was the best we could do to get away from an actual bottle.

 The Dr. Brown's and Born Free were both great bottles. I saw no major differences between the two. One selling point for wide-neck is that the wider nipple is more like an actual breast than the skinny neck bottle nipples are. The nipple itself is pretty much the same size, but the "aureola" part (for lack of a better term) of the bottle nipple is wider on the wide-neck bottle and seams more like a real breast. The other great feature is that its easier to pour breast milk into the wider opening or even scoop and mix formula in them. I never had trouble with my baby having "nipple confusion" (I love that term, BTW)... She went between bottle and breast with no trouble. It could have just been her amazingness and my amazing breasts (LOL), or maybe these bottles actually helped! 

When I was taking inventory of what we have already for the new baby and what we needed to purchase, I realized that all of Emily's bottles were a little worse for the wear. Some of the numbers were coming off on the outside, and I just felt like starting fresh and clean with some brand new bottles. I decided to try a different brand and chose the Avent brand wide neck bottles because they looked cool and had pretty good reviews.  I ordered a 5 pack of 9oz bottles and an extra one came free with the pack... the free one is their latest bottle called Avent Natural. The "natural" one is supposed to be more like a breast than the other, but they are really really similar. In the pic below, the bottle on the left is the 4oz natural bottle with a level 1 nipple for new borns (has only one hole and flows very very slowly); the bottle on the right is their regular 9oz bottle with a level 2 nipple (slow flow for babies 1 month and up). I will admit that the natural one is definitely more breast like in feel (I even had my husband inspect it last night to confer). 

One thing I have already noticed about the Avent bottles vs. our old ones is that they are more simple! There are less parts to wash and less parts to lose... If you scroll back up to my first pic, you will see that the Dr. Brown's has two internal parts besides just the bottle basics. The Born Free has a different system, but still two internal parts. With both of those bottles, the interior parts are pretty hard to clean really well without using a tiny little bottle brush that they provide with the bottles.  The Avent brand just has that extra little ring for the regular 9oz bottle and no interior parts at all for the natural 4oz. bottle. The lid and nipple design for the Avent Natural is a little more complex, but still seams easy to clean and put together. 

See the simplicity:

The real test will be when the baby comes. We shall see if they do all that they promise! 

The down-side of my new Avent bottles:

1.) the nipples are specially designed so they aren't interchangeable with other brands. For example my Born Free and Dr. Brown's bottles used virtually the same nipples and they could be swapped. With Avent, I can only use the Avent brand nipples.

2.) This is just one of my weird annoyances... the box for Avent advertises that it reduces colic... when I last checked Colic was defined as new borns that cry for no reason, meaning that no one knows why they are crying and that they are just fussy. There aren't any known health or intestinal problems that are known to cause it. This means that a bottle can't have anything to do with colic. A bottle may be able to help reduce gas for a baby that has tummy trouble - I can get on board with that statement, but if Colic is just an umbrella that we group babies under who cry and cry for no reason, then a bottle just can't fix it! I don't like false advertising!!! Its like when a super model or famous actress endorses a cheapie make-up brand! You know they don't use Cover Girl or dye their own hair at home with a box of $10 Nice N' Easy! They have millions of dollars and use fancy special make-up that is top of the line! Its a Sham!!! 

I'll think of another baby product to review tomorrow since that seams to be my theme this week! If you have a suggestion, write it in the comment box and I will blog about whatever product you are curious about :)