What Bottle Is The Best?

I am getting ready to register soon so I've been researching products daily. Today was bottles. I am hearing a lot of mixed reviews on various brands of bottles so I wanted to ask here to get the opinions of ladies with experience. For some reason I always had it in my head that Dr. Brown's bottles were the best. I don't know why, I just always thought that. I have some other friends that are recommending Avent & Playtex Drop In bottles. Not sure how popular the brand "Born Free" is but I've heard good things about those as well. So please tell me which bottle is the best & if you don't mind adding a little comment to explain I would greatly appreciate it!

Is it recommended that I get a bunch of different brands of bottles to see what my baby likes best or will that cause confusion due to different style nipples etc?

Oh, I plan on trying to BF but I would like to pump & bottle feed so my husband can feed the baby as well.

Anything else I should know about bottle feeding??

Thanks!!!

Return to Poll

10%

 (1) 

Dr. Brown's

20%

 (2) 

Avent

10%

 (1) 

Playtex

10%

 (1) 

Born Free

50%

 (5) 

Other (Please explain)

10 Members voted

[mamaofonetrying42]

I believe they all work fine, it really depends on what BABY likes. So you may go though a few different ones intill you find one :)

[Clysta]

I personally use the Playtex and Born Free bottles. I love how they work, but the problem is they can be expensive. I would however discourage bottle use in the start. You need to get a pattern established, unless you intend to pump and bottle feed that way only. (this prevents nipple confusion in baby---bottles make a baby lazy because they don't have to work to get the food out)

[AHP84]

With my first son, I used the Vent Aire bottles (I think Playtex makes them). He liked those, but there are a million and one pieces to clean, as it is with Dr. Browns and Born Free.
With my second son, I tried Born Free, Avent, BrestFlow, and Madela. He didn't want anything to do with any of them. But because he liked Gerber NUK pacifiers, he'd take the NUK bottles. He prefers the tall, narrow NUK nipples to the broader, shorter nipples though, since they're shaped just like the paci nipples. The tall, narrow NUK nipples fit on any basic narrow-necked bottle, which makes them convenient. So I used the basic $1 bottles with the tall NUK nipples--super cheap and super easy to clean.

[chantal21]

I voted other because I have tried all of these. I bought one of each to see what my babies would like best. Dr. Brown's started out great and my son never had a problem with those. Avent it also good, I really like the way the nipple is shaped on those and I think my son used this one a lot. Playtex is fine, I didn't like that I had to keep buying the drop-ins, made it inconvenient for me, but they work well. Born Free is good, but I think my son had a little trouble drinking from them for some reason. So if I had to pick 1, I would choose Avent. I also have medela bottles that came with my pump when I would express milk and bottle feed, and those are just your basic bottles and they always worked great. I ended up buying more from online. I even went to Wal*mart and tried their generic brand (once my son was a little older) and those became his favorite. They are really cheap and worked just as well. haha okay so I've tried almost every bottle out there. It honestly depends on what baby likes and can adapt to. Try a couple of different brands and you will find the best one in no time. :)

[JoyRenee]

I liked the first comment, LOL!

Most people like the one that worked best for THEIR baby and all of those are good ones. I used the Avent ones with my two older girls and they had breast-like nipples which helped their jaw development. I've never used the other kinds so of course I can't give a really good objective opinion. But I did vote Avent.

[JoyRenee]

Okay I seriously didn't read your entire post very well. I just read you plan to BF but want to pump so Daddy can feed baby. One word of advice you'll receive from lactation experts is to not introduce a bottle for the first few weeks until you have a good BFing relationship established. My youngest was exclusively breastfed and she only took one bottle of pumped B/M from Daddy and that was IT. Some babies just don't want to switch back-and-forth, period. Others do absolutely FANTASTIC switching back-and-forth.

It took about 3-4 weeks for me to feel like we were really doing great at breastfeeding, wasn't tender anymore, we had a rhythm, etc.

I'm sorry I'm not much help except to say each little one is diff. and you may not know until they arrive! I'd go with a nipple that is breast-like regardless of the bottle brand.

[NicoleW09]

I bought a pack of drop ins, a pack of tommee tippees, one avent, a pack of dr browns, and my cousin gave me a bunch of cheapie bottles to see which I liked. They all seemd fine in the beginning, but after about a month, Lexi started refusing anything but the Tommee Tippee bottles. Luckily they basically stay on sale at Babies R Us at buy one get one half off. I have to buy the nipples that they make especially for babies with thickened feeding bc of her reflux. We have to put cereal in her bottles and the Tommee Tippee brand makes a nipple for it, so we don't have to make the holes bigger or anything. I suggest buying several brand and see what baby likes.

I tried the born free bottles and she screamed for an hour after I tried to feed her and refused to eat. :(

[mami2karina]

I have found that every baby is different. I have bought Playtex Air Vent each time, the wide ones like the breast not the skinny ones. But my daughter and my last son both had colic and it didn't help so we tried Dr. Brown's. My baby when he came home wanted nothing to do with any nipple except for the disposable ones the hospital sent home and I couldn't get. He did however take that green binky at the hospital and they have bottles with the same shaped nipple as it so I used those for a while. I've tried every type of bottle and nipple out there for my 3 kids.

[Ashelen]

We've used a lot with good results...VentAire (playtex) was good for my daughter after the initial few months...we used drop-ins (also Playtex) and with my daughter we eventually settled on using FirstYear Soothies....they're amazing. With my son we used the bottles that came with my breastpump initially but then we switched to the Tommee Tippee which he still uses at almost 10 months and they are, in my experience, the best that we've tried. They are the most like a real breast to me.

[alaysha]

My first. I tried Avent and loved them and that was the only bottle she used. With my second I tried the drop in which spilled ALL over her so we then switched to Agent but baby didn't like them. Then we switched to the BornFree glass bottles and those were the ones that stayed. I like them because I don't have to worry about any plastic problems, can heat them up without worrying about melting and they are sturdy. I have dropped them onto all types of surfaces such as asphalt, cement, tile etc and for some weird reason they never break.

[JoyRenee]

I just read Malia's comment directly above mine (alaysha) and I haven't tried Born Free but IF I were to bottle feed or buy bottles I think I would get them because of all the plastic scares. Even drop-ins have plastic liners. If Born Free has a similar nipple to the Avent I have used then that is what I would get if I were shopping for bottles.

[LosingMyMindInGA]

In my opinion and from my experience, you can research bottles/nipples til you are blue in the face and choose one you feel is best only to have your baby reject it.  I would choose several types of bottles and register for just a couple of each.  That way you can try them all with your baby and see which one s/he likes best.  I have never used any of the expensive  or "upscale" bottles.  I've used the old playtex regular bottles (not drop ins) and I've used the parents choice from walmart.  With my last few kids I've used the medela bottles and nipples.  

[NicMom]

I skipped all the other answers above so I apologize if this is duplicate advice. I wouldn't stock up on bottles just get a few types and decided after the baby is born. You might figure out that you can't stand one or the other and your baby might decide that it doesn't like the nipples.

I bought tons of avent bottles and supplies only for the baby to want nothing to do with them. I also figured out that if you don't get the top on just right the milk leaks out. Who ever said don't cry over spilled milk didn't have to pump breast milk, because when you do spill it you will cry ;-)

[angela418]

In my own experience, my son did NOT have a problem with nipple confusion and was willing to go back and forth easily from breast to bottle from his first week and on, lucky for us, and I know that not all babies are as easy.  

When he was 5 DAYS old, I was in SUCH pain from breastfeeding that I just needed a break from him on the breast.  So, I pumped a few times here and there and fed him a bottle instead - we used the NUK bottles by the way and got them at Wal-Mart.  He never had a problem taking bottle or breast or pacifier (he took pretty much any pacifier brand we gave him).  

Once I figured out how to breastfeed better and I wasn't in such pain, I didn't have to really pump again until I went back to work when he was 6 1/2 weeks old.  Then, I had to pump 2x a day at work and he got breast milk and bottle every day with some formula supplementing.  My last day of work for the school year and because I was quitting (teaching) was when he was 6 months old and I was able to continue breastfeeding him, without pumping anymore, until he was 10 months old.  By that point, he was eating a lot of solids and I was only nursing him 1x a day.

Ok, that was a long rambly story and the answer to your question was that I used NUK bottles and they worked for my son and they were fairly inexpensive.  In many cases, though, you do have to try several kinds to see which works for your baby.  I also used a Medela breast pump, in case you are deciding on that, too. :-)

[chantal21]

Nicole, I like your last comment and it is soooo true!! I spilled my milk twice and I literally cried. That stuff is precious!!!! :)

[roxy562]

I have a 2 month old daughter and since she was born I've used dr.brown bottles. Didn't have to try anything else. She loved them. Plus I love them too. She has never gotten colics. They are a Lil pain in the butt to wash, you wash them the same as any other bottle but these come with a special brush to clean the inside of the blue tube and another Lil section from the bottle. It's just a Lil more detail while washing them, time consuming I would say!  but they are still great. I plan to use them until she's old enough to drink out of a sipy cup.

I recommend Dr. Brown bottles!!! They are great!

[curlygirly1986]

Hi I tried loads off bottles with my son he only took to the tommy tipee closer to nature ones but I really liked these ones too the shape of the teat is shape like a breast so its like there breast feedin still x

[alaysha]

Joy the nipples are very similar to avent. :)

[angela418]

Nicole and Chantal - oh my goodness - I remember a couple times when I pumped and knocked over the bottle when I was trying to pour it into the feeding bottle and I cried like a baby - I remember saying "I can't feed my baby!!" to the hubby and I was so super emotional - I never really got a whole lot - and never any extra - when I pumped - so it was heartbreaking when it would spill!  I worked so hard for that!!  LOL