Bottle Babies

I remember that photo Emma! All I could think was poor you having to wash them all!

I dont have a baby (yet!) BUT , i just wanted to say good on you jes for creating this thread, sadly ,your right , there doesnt seem to be as much support for ladies that chose to bottle feed , and why ? yes we all know that ideally breast is best, but we dont live in an ideal world, and sometimes it just doesnt work out that way , at the end of the day , your doing what you need to do, providing food for your baby , and isnt that the important thing ?
When you have your baby , you promise them that you will protect them and feed them , and you are doing exactly what you promised, thats all that should matter .

Okay , lurker will stop rambling now

The TT bottles have those valves on the teats Jess so maybe that has something to do with it??

I my TT Closer to Nature bottles... they saved mine and Keziah's life as before them I had tried several different brands from Avent to Generic and she wouldn't take any of them and wasn't getting enough on the boobie... so when I got my TT and she took it first time with no stress I was relieved

Thank you cuppatea - that's an interesting point, definately something to think about.

Jezsika wrote: Ok this is a maybe wierd observation but has anyone who has gone from Avent to Tommee Tippee noticed this? Shake the formula in the Avent and you get HEAPS of air in it and the bubbles stay there for ages. Shake the formula in the Tommee Tippee and there are NO bubbles what so ever? FAB :D

I found the same when Alize was having a bottle, I ended up ditching all the advent bottles and giving them to the DC to have as back up and got all TT. They are great and very cute colours too lol

We did formula top ups at night for a while (from about 2 months), I'm not sure if it helped him sleep longer as we introduced a routine at that time as well, but I found when expressing full time sometimes by evening I would be low on milk and not be able to pump enough so instead would give formula at 10pm and then ebm again when he woke in the night. I think quite often women struggling to keep up with when pumping full time as its not the same stimulation as baby suckling. Although I think there is one lady on here how did it till 6 months (I can't remember who though).

We have used avent bottles and microwave steriliser which I wouldn't be without. We have 4 bottles, it meant more washing when he was little but that's ok you get into a routine with it. Spencers formula can only be made up for an hour before being binned so we have one of those little formula pots and take the bottles out with just water in them. He has finally started drinking his milk at room temp which is a relief and mean I don't have to carry a thermos anymore.

Another bottle fed baby here :) She was breast fed (though don't think she got much) and supplemented up to about a week ago and now is fully on the bottle. Good to see this thread I think it could be good for those First timers to get some support - I remember back with my first how horrible it was and how little info you had to go on - at least this is my second time around so i have a lot more knowledge - and also found I ended up with a better hospital experience as the midwives weren't so judgemental at the hospital this time

We use standard bottles (ie not the wide ones) with the standard NUK nipples in them - these are the same I used with my other daughter and they work with her too. I do have one tommee tippee wide neck bottle which she use to drink from ok but now she refuses it.

I've just ordered some Dr Browns natural flow botles as i need a few more so I'm interested to see how those work out too. Anyone tried these??

This is my first EVERY post and it is to say how happy I am to see something pro-FF or at least not bashing those of us who use bottles for what ever reason.

My two DD are both bottle babies (DD1 from 4 weeks and DD2 from 6 weeks). They are both beautiful girls who are very healthy and happy. As someone said earlier - breastfeeding does not make you a better or more loving mother.

I had never considered FF - just assumed that I would BF but about 20 mins after DD1 was born my midwife commented that I had rather flat nipples (who knew!) and it was down hill from there - don't need to share the details!

Thank you for starting the thread - I am happy with my decision now and know what I am doing (well as much as you can when you are a mum!) but there are a lot of mums out there who have no support or info in this area and the decision is nearly always one that is coming at a very stressful time.



Edited by jaycee

jaycee - you sound similar to my situation - glad i'm not the only one that didn't realise their nipples weren't "normal" - DD1 never latched so was express fed to 6 weeks, DD2 was fed till 5 weeks but both were supplemented pretty much since birth

catgirl - thanks for the feed back on the Dr Brown bottles - I'm really looking forward to giving them a go - hopefully they'll be here tomorrow :)

Sprials, if that is the way you feel, just stick to your guns. People also kept telling me I would change my mind when I had my baby, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. DH actually got to give Gabs her very first feed and as cuppatea said you can give colostrum, BUT you don't have to. I never did and my baby is fine. I told my midwife the first time I met her that I wasn't going to breastfeed, I was worried she would try to talk me into it, but she was very supportive and realised that if I was happier formula feeding then it would make bonding with my baby easier and I could enjoy her instead of dreading feeding her.

I also found the midwives at the hospitals very supportive, we went to St Georges in Chch and we had already done a tour there and I discussed ffing with a midwife there at the time of the tour. They supplied bottles, but I could have brought my own and I brought formula as we are using karicare hypoallergenic formula because I get dermatitis, but they can supply formula as well. My midwife also told the people at St Georges not to bother me with bfing info as I wasn't going to, she was really great about it actually.

I am annoyed at the little info there is out there about ffing but if you look for it you can find it. My midwife gave me lots of info. I also got a lot of info from the nutricia website (who make karicare).   If you go to the nutricia website you can get a free sample which is a whole tin.

The way we feed is we make up a jug of formula that will only be enough for 24 hours maximum and keep it in the fridge and just put as much as we need to in a bottle when she is due for a feed, I heat it by putting it in a jug of boiling water.

The Phil and Teds Latte bottles are a good invention for travelling as you can put the water in the bottom and the formula in the top and then straighten the bottle and shake when you need to feed bubs. I found these at baby city.

A couple of other things too after 3 months you don't have to steralise the bottles anymore and you don't need to use cooled boiled water anymore ( if you are on town supply). My plunket nurse advised me this.

And yes the microwave steryliser was a godsend prior to her being 3 months old.

God its so nice to be able to tell my experience without people beratting me, thanks for starting this thread.

Sorry about the novel