Teats for bottles & breastpumps

[nori]

Hello mums!

Ive purchased an avent microwave bottle steriliser and my friend has given me some avent bottles. Now i need to buy some teats and was wondering what flow to get and how long each flow lasts. My friend recommended a teat which has all different flows in one teat depending on which bit you use. What would you recommend?

Oh and also.. what are your opinions on breastpumps? My friend has given me a manual one. Did you use manual or automatic? Im probably being really stupid but theres not much suction in the manual one.. i dont get how it would work?? maybe ive put it together wrong!

I really think we should be taught all this stuff in school rather than algebra!

Claire x

 

[Sherlock]

You say about expressing so am guessing you are hoping to breastfeed. Or do you hope to express everything and feed it via a bottle? If so thats a load of work and I wish you all the best with it. Personally its my idea of making things really hard for yourself especially in the early weeks when LO will need to be demand fed to build up your supply of milk. Plus all the other things that happen after giving birth. Also expressing never gets as much as a baby can from the boob as a rule.

You need to BF for at least 6 weeks and not mess with expressing feeds until you have a good supply going and LO latches well etc. Thats the recommendation and having expressed a little around 3 weeks for health reasons I can tell you its a pain in the arse and boob feeding is so much easier. If its so your OH can feel involevd there is loads he can do till the 6 weeks are up.

IIRC kalia has expressed all her milk and fed via bottle, but I can't think of anyone else to do so.

FWIW teats have different flow speeds. If you plan to mix expressing and bf'ing then you risk your baby preferring the bottle if you have teats that allow the milk to flow to easily and LO doesn't have to suck hard to get milk out. When they go back to the boob they get lazy and sometimes then don't feed well anymore.

I suggest you give careful thought to expressing in the first 6 weeks and make sure you really are aware of the pitfalls and problems from it (making loads more work for yourself, not letting your baby build up your supply by demand feeding, time to express each feed, not getting as much milk expressing and other things).

If you plan to express a lot then electric all the way. Decent ones cost £70-80 and upwards. Hand pumps are fine for occasional feeds.

Breastfeeding is hard work in the early weeks, no doubt about it but so very rewarding and worth it if you can stick with it and make it through.

Good luck

 

[nori]

Thanks Sherlock,

If all is ok with my crohns and it hasnt flared up (which would then result in me having to take more medication which means i couldnt breast feed) then i plan to breastfeed. I know a few poeple that do a top up bottle at night alongside breastfeeing? Is this a good idea or a bad idea?

Because my health IS so unpredictable i was going to purchase a few teats before hand.. just didnt know which ones.

Claire x

 

[Sherlock]

Re top up feeds, if you are going to do one in the early weeks I'd suggest giving one earlier in the evening and not at nighttime. The reasons I suggest this is that formula is much heavier and more filling then breastmilk and takes longer to digest but less to fill them up. In the early weeks its important your LO feeds lots and if they have a formula feed at night it will possibly encourage them to sleep longer and mess with building your supply and also cause them problems.

I'd let your LO demand feed at night for the early weeks at least. But thats me. Our LO became jaundiced at 3 days because he slept for 5 hours in one go at night and then a few hours the next day and therefore didn't feed enough off my boob. I then had to feed him every 2-3 hours without fail even though he sometimes wasn't overly hungry. This was to prevent his jaundice becoming worse.

If BF'ing is going well I'd stick with it and avoid formula unless you really *have* to use it from time to time.

 

[Jollypops]

i dont no anything about the teat with various flows but can say that i have tried variflow which he didnt like and an now on medium flow (3+ months). the hospital said to me that full term babies normally have single holed teats and variflow mimics the breast flow. might be buy two teats and see how it goes then buy more once you know which is best,

i used a tomme tippee hand pump when i was at home which worked fine, and an electric one in hospital, breastfed and bottle fed with tommee tippee closer to nature bottles and calum hasnt had a problem with any of it.

once your boobs are full with milk you'll be surprised that you wont need much pressure to release it!

 

[kittykat8]

I've got the Medela Special Needs teats, they make baby work at getting the milk and were recommended by the baby whisperer, Tracy Hogg.

I had a very long wait for my milk to come in and have found these fab, they are expensive though, poshmums.co.uk sell pack of three with bottles for £37.99.

Hope this helps!