The Dr. Browns were a shower gift, the Avent were given to us by twin moms as were the Born Free.
There are so many pieces with each one! I had no idea!
We washed them all in the dishwasher and have one of those handy baskets for the tiny parts...and we've made room in the kitchen cabinets for all of the new baby dish gear.
BUT--how do you keep the parts separated for the different baby bottles???
The only thing I can come up with so far is to wash the brands all separately and then put the parts in a 3 large ziploc baggies.
This is fine for now--but is this practical when I am actually feeding twins all day and all night??
I'm planning to breast feed, but I know I'm going to have to pump as well. The bottles will probably be used as a backup if I can't double breast feed. Not that I'm not going to try, but I want to be realistic about this whole thing. If a baby has to take my breast milk from a bottle, well then that's how it's going to be, you know?
So any helpful suggestions would be most welcome! Thanks!
11 comments:
We're fairly fond of the Dr. Brown's bottles, and they're the only ones our son will take, although every baby is different, and we had to try several bottles before we knew this.
Honestly, the easiest way I've found to keep the parts together is to take them out of the dishwasher and loosely assemble them so that the parts are together before I put them away (we have a little caddy specifically for bottles and their parts). Of course, this means everything has to be dry when assembled, but it seems to be working thus far. Also, after you use them all a couple of times, you'll start to know which parts go with which bottles. I hope this helps!
I am pretty sure that the refusal to take a certain type of bottle is not a newborn problem. All of my friends who had that issue had it somewhere around the 3 to 6 month mark. I'd suggest picking whichever type of bottle you have the most of and putting that in the kitchen and putting the others someplace else in case you need them. Chances are you won't need them, and in that case it is so much easier to just have one type of bottle parts floating around. Given that you will hopefully have friends coming over and offering to help, the easier the organizational system the more likely you won't have to micromanage (which is to say, for example, that we put all of the fusspot's newborn clothes in a single bin on the floor of her room. One bin for clothes, one for blankets/bibs/burp clothes. No folding, no sorting. Worked really well for us for the first few weeks).
I was going to suggest putting them together once they're clean too. Not that I have any experience really - we failed miseraby at getting BB to take a bottle.
I would say that you should stock up on the Dr. Brown's bottles. Riley loved them and had troubles with other ones. We have since passed them on to TWO other babies that wouldn't take any other bottles. They are really easy. I would wash them and put put them back together and in the cabinet or in ziplocs.
From my limited experience nearly 20 years ago (and with friends' kids) - seconding both the keep one out (the one you have most of), try it, and if it doesn't work, worry about the other brands later, and the cleaning and drying them, and putting them loosely together. (My mom always had us put the nipples in facing down, but I'm not really sure WHY, and I don't think that's physically possible in the dr. browns anyway.)
Due to our working schedules and the fact that our dishwasher is old and crap and doesn't really get anything clean (and so we don't want to be double washing, or washing ALL bottles by hand), we're hoping to go with the drop-ins. We got two starter packs for SUPER cheap and are keeping them unopened, and have some hand-me-downs that we're going to start with. And if Figment doesn't like those... we'll go from there.
We use sour cream containers. Wash them out, label with masking tape and pop all the pieces in. After a while, you'll find that you just recognize the pieces.
I've been enjoying reading your blog and look forward to the arrival of the Baby fishes!
We love the Dr Browns over here. Little E has pretty bad reflux and it really helps with the gas. We started her on them in the NICU (they are the only bottles they reccomend. We have the Dr Brown's rack and we wash is the dish washer (in one of those special baskets)then assemble the parts on the rack. Quite frankly the bottles never get back into the cabinets (perhaps you will do better than we do though!) We like to prep multilple bottles so usually the bottles are made ahead and in the fridge ready to go.
A tip on pumping I suggest that you go and get some extra pumping supplies. You will get 1 set of phlanges and bottles to pump in and it just isn't enough. Go out and get extra phlanges and the microwave sterilizing bags. I now have 4 full sets and it makes life so much easier. If you are going to pump after each feeding that could be up to 8 times a day! Washing them in between is a huge pain.
Good luck
i started off with three different brands also...now we are down to using dr browns solely. i found it to be the best for fighting gas and acid reflux. in the beginning it took me washing the bottle a couple of times to see how they each fit together. after a couple of feedings you will recognize which piece goes where. hope this helps :]
Simple is best. There is a bottle shaped like a boob that is made of material where you can squeeze it to help the baby feel the same "let down" when you breast feed. It has three pieces and is the best thing EVER. I can't remember what it's called, but it doesn't have all those pieces!
I agree that simple is best and that is why we opted for the "old School" glass evenflo nurser bottles this time around.... At under $10 for a 3 pack they are more than affordable compared to Dr. Brown, Born Free, Avent and the like, are BPA free and are also very conducive to breastfeeding as the milk proteins won't stick to the walls of bottle.... They are very sturdy (haven't had one break in 10 months), affordable, and only a few parts to contend with making them very easy to asssemble and clean. One a bottle, nipple and ring to contend with... Less to mess up when attempting to make a bottle at 3 am on no sleep :)
Sorry... I forgot to mention one other thing.... The Evenflo glass nursers also can be screwed directly onto the Medela Pump in Style and Pump in Style Advanced breastpumps so you can pump directly into the bottles that you will feed them with, saving a step and another set of containers to clean!!!!
Ok! I swear I'm done now :)
Post a Comment