Dr. Brown's Bottles and Using Formula

When we found out we were having a baby there were many things we knew we would need to buy, bottles being one of them.  I did a little bit of research, and the consensus was that Dr. Brown's was one of the best bottles you could buy.

I knew I wouldn't need the bottles for at least 6 months.  I was going to breastfeed, and I was going to be at home so I would have no need for bottles.  Boy was I wrong.  Turns out breastfeeding didn't work out.  That is a whole other story I will tell another day, but long story short, it didn't work the way I planned.  Good thing I had asked for bottles on my baby shower wishlist!

We were gifted two newborn feeding packs which came with 5 bottles, all the parts, and the little pipe cleaners you need to clean the bottles.  We started using formula when baby was 4 or 5 days old.  Here comes mistake number one :  we were mixing formula with room temp. bottled water.  We learned after a couple weeks and a visit to the lactation consultant that you are supposed to boil the water, wait for it to cool a little bit, THEN mix the formula.  What?  Ugh.. what a pain.  

Ok, so bye bye bottled water.  We then started mixing batches of formula in the larger bottles, then pouring it and warming it as needed.  Recently I started pre-pouring the formula and making the bottles I would need for the day (yes, it took me two months to come up with this idea).  This is where the problems started.

Lots of complaints online about Dr. Brown's bottles were that they leak.  This never happened to us until we started pre-making the bottles.  After a few times of this happening we realized that when you pre-make bottles and put a lid on them, then put them in the fridge, it creates a problem when you warm up the bottles.  The heat causes liquid to come up the little straw piece and sit by the opening in the bottle so when you tilt it over, it spills out.  Also most of the formula was leaking out into the heating cup we had.  I would start with 3 oz, and after the bottle sat in hot water, there would only be 1 oz. in the bottle.  Easy solution.  We started taking the caps off and unscrewing and rescrewing the tops back on.  Problem solved and we haven't had a leak since.

Overall, we like Dr. Brown's bottles.  They definitely don't cause the baby to have gas.  They don't leak if you use them correctly.  There is one large downside to these bottles - all the pieces.

First, you have the bottle itself, then the little tan piece that you see here that connects to the straw piece.  Then you have the nipple and the part that you screw the nipple on with.  Then you've got a lid.  So for one bottle you have to clean 6 parts with this tiny little pipe cleaner.  These pieces take over my kitchen.  

I always wondered what it would be like to use other bottles, but for now we have these.  Griffin is getting big enough now that we are moving up to the level 2 nipples, and will soon start with a couple different training cup series and we won't really be worried about washing as many bottles each day.    We are going to try the piyo piyo training cup set.

And also the mOmma trainer, which I just ordered today cause I got half off!  This only also converts to sippy with handles, then straw with one handle.

As we use these, I'll let you know how it goes.  

Here is Griff trying to hold his bottle.