Avent vs Dr. Brown's vs playtex nurser

[@llli*aept]

Hi all,
My DS is 5 weeks and everything I read tells me that this is the time to introduce the bottle (since I will eventually be going back to work 2 days per week, and he will need to take one on those days.)

I have 1-2 of each of these bottles to try: Avent, Dr. Brown's wide mouth "natural flow", and the playtex nurser - one is the vent-aire and one has the disposable bags inside. All have pretty much the same type of nipple as the Avent, with the wide area under the nipple to supposedly help them keep lips open just as the latch on the breast.

Who likes what? I am thinking the Dr. Browns will be a pain to clean, but everyone seems to rave about them.

Also, I just got a coupon today from babies r us for a new bottle by The First Years, called Breastflow or something like that - anyone try one of these yet? It supposedly takes both suction and compression to get the milk out?

Thanks for your opinions on this!

[@llli*aleinanlaurynsmom]

we use avent bottles and so far it's worked great for us! i've also heard great things about the dr. brown bottles, but they do look like a hassle to clean...and i've never tried the playtex nurser. my dd is able to go between the avent bottle and breast with no problem. we introduced the bottle to her at about 4 weeks...and she's now 4.5 months old.

hopefully other mothers who have used dr. brown's or the playtex nurser will chime in...but my vote is for avent!

[Dylan's Mom]

I used both Dr. Brown's and Avent bottles for EBM. We started with the Dr Browns and then switched to the Avent. My son has no difference what so ever with these two bottles.

What I realized....
The nipples for the Avent come with a size 2, they were too fast for my son at first. We bought the size 1, nothing came out at all, I even tried to get it out myself and couldn't. Maybe we just had a bad package, I dont know! Dr Brown's came with size 2, but they were perfect for him when he was little (3-6 weeks). Once he could handle the Avent size 2 nipple, we switched him completely off the Dr. Brown's bottle. Honestly, it was because of the cleaning. Not only are there so many parts to them, they are a pain in the butt to clean. But as far as spit up and air in his tummy, we never noticed a difference between the two bottles. I have no problems at all recommending the Avent bottles (and the first years bottle warmer works great...very easy and compatable with the wide neck Avent bottles!).

[@llli*veggiegirl228]

I personally prefer the Dr Brown bottles.
There may be a bit extra cleaning, but I haven't had any problems with them at all. I have tried the avent bottles and had problems with leaking (tried different nipples/bottles). If you use a pump and have the reg dr brown bottles you can pump with those in place of the medela bottles if needed or wanted to..

[@llli*sweetiejo5]

I use the Playtex nurser with the disposable liners and I really enjoy them. Clean up is easier if that is a concern for you. (Makes me a lot less paranoid about sanitization and germs) Purchasing disposable liners may also be a concern but I don't have to use them too often so I don't go through them so fast. I have never used the other two kinds because the Playtex has worked so well for us but I do give a lot of bottles to babies when I work in the nursury at church and Advent and Dr. Brown's are the most widely used. What I have noticed is that they both flow very quickly and baby swallows a lot of air and has to spit them out and take a break. This is why I prefer my nurser. The flow is more similar to the breast and my dd doesn't have to keep spitting the nipple out. Also the bag contracts so there is less air. I also don't enjoy having to give a Dr. Brown's bottle because I think that they leak like crazy! HTH.

[bradensmom730]

I use the Avent bottles for my 2 month old (he started bottles around 3 weeks.) As a previous poster has noted, there are several different flow nipples for these. The 4 oz comes with the newborn nipple (size 1), and the 9 oz comes with the 1 month nipple (size 2). As a previous poster had said, I had a few nipples that had no flow coming out - but I pricked it with a pin and the flow started. Someone told me that breastfed babies should stick with the newborn nipple because the flow is slower - more similar to how the breastfeeding works.

I have heard good things about the Dr Brown's bottles. But not tried them myself. There is a special cleaning brush to clean the tube.

My son didn't like the Playtex nursers but he had already had the Avent bottles first. I think the flow was different than he was used to.

My friend's 4 month old would only take the Breastflow bottle once he was used to it, then she had trouble finding it. But she also tried the Soothie bottle and he would take that also.

Good luck to you! These are only my personal opinions, you will have to try what works for you and your DS!

[lmeyer7716]

I use the dr. browns bottles. there is only the vent that is extra and it doesn't take that much extra time to clean. i have not tried anything else so i don't know if it really helps that much or not. as far as nipple size, my LO is 10 weeks old and he is still using the newborn or #1 nipples i had some #2 and it just flowed to fast for him and he would chock.

One thing i learned though, if you use a bottle warmer with the dr. browns make sure to take the top and vent out. if not sometimes the milk will come out of the bottle. i thought i was cracking bottles at first.

[@llli*elephantmargaret]

We tried them all and at first he would only take the wide mouth ventair bottles. Then they weren't going well so I tried them all again and ended up with Dr Brown's. So, try them (starting with the easiest to clean/cheapest) and then don't get rid of the others because that might change. I will say that the classic ventairs (without bags) are even more of a PITA to clea than the Dr Brown's!

[@llli*aept]

Thanks for all the responses!

Well, I started pumping yesterday. Hopefully we'll catch him in a good mood tonight and DH can try giving him his first bottle tonight. I think we will start with the Avent - with the easy-to-wash option.

I was thinking I'd return any unused ones, but after reading your posts, maybe I'll just hold onto them for a while!

[Eliza's mom]

I got some avent bottles as a gift so I figured I would try these first. When I started pumping I was using the Medela bottles with the pump and would have to transfer to the bottles, etc. BUT, I found a pump converter and now I can pump directly into the avent bottles or even the Via disposable ones and can store the milk in there (even freeze it) and feed her from the avent bottle too.

I was encouraged to use a system with disposable liners, but I would have to wash whatever I am pumping into anyway, or if I wanted to freeze the milk in bags, I wanted to know how much I was freezing.

Anyway I decided to stick with Avent, they are a little expensive but not prohibitive. I bought a set on ebay to have a bunch of spares for storing etc. And I have heard that the nipples for the circo lookalike bottles at Target are interchangable with avent. They do look almost identical and were 50 cnts on clearance, for two, as opposed to 3-4 bucks like the set of two avent nipples.

I'm not sure when to switch to a faster flow nipple. My breasts don't get faster, (do they?) so why should the bottles?