Dr Brown's Natural Flow Anti-Colic Narrow Baby Bottle, 2oz/60ml with Preemie Flow Teat, 1-Pack

Feeding properly

We have been trying to Introduce bottle to my exclusively breastfed baby at 4 weeks old, without causing confusion/bottle preference. Tried maam bottles but the flow was too fast and it made baby gag and get confused going back to breast. He forgot how to latch & suck so we gave it a break for a few days. We were advised to try a narrow slow flow teat (instead of wider breast shape) so bought 3 brands to compare. This brand wins hands down, the flow is slow (the slowest of all 3 brands of ‘slow flow’) and he took the bottle no problem, and no problem switching between breast and bottle. Didn’t seem to swallow any air with the anti colic system which is amazing. For context, baby is not preemie (he was born at 8lb12). The teat/top fits into medela bottles so it’s super easy to change the bottle size (and use the medela breast pumps with it too) A fab buy and I will be getting more!

These were the only bottles my premature baby could use (and we tried a few!) My baby was born 4 weeks early and was small for his gestation (4lb 7oz born) and struggled to feed in hospital. They gave him the pre sterile disposable bottles and teats, but when we came home when he was 2 days old we struggled with feeding him - the Tommee Tippee bottles I'd purchased before he was born were far too big for him to use - the teat barely fit in his mouth! I purchased some NUK bottles, as the teat shape is similar to the hospital ones, but the flow was far too fast for him and he was spluttering and milk was spilling out of the corners of his mouth. I searched online for the best bottles for premature babies and came across these - I ordered 2 for next day delivery and I'm so glad that I did. They were so much better than any others wed tried and after using them for a day and finding they were suitable, I ordered 2 more. Positives: - The teat flow is suitable for small babies who struggle to feed - The teat is a good size for small babies - The teat didn't collapse when feeding like I found that the Tommee Tippee ones do - My baby took to these straight away after struggling with other bottles - The vent system helps reduce the air baby takes in when feeding, so reduces wind - They come with a small vent brush for cleaning the more fiddly parts - They can be washed in the dishwasher (with a dishwasher basket to stop the parts from flying around), saving valuable time with a newborn Negatives: - They only hold 2oz (60ml) of milk - so babies can quickly grow out of them when they need more milk at each feed. For my baby this was at around 7 weeks old, but when we tried to move on to regular Dr Brown's bottles with Level 1 teats (unfortunately the 'preemie' teats don't fit the regular bottles because they're much smaller), it was a big step up for him and took some getting used to - however, we've stuck with Dr Brown's bottles since. I've added a photo of a preemie bottle next to a standard bottle for an idea of size. - If you need to heat up bottles, they can leak when the milk gets warm as it travels up the vent tube and out of the collar - I found untightening the collar of the bottle during heating and then retightening before feeding solved this problem. - There are 6 parts for each bottle, so they take a while to wash up thoroughly by hand compared to other bottles Overall I would definitely recommend these bottles to anyone with a premature and/or low birth weight baby. It was so stressful trying to ensure that my baby was feeding and getting enough milk before getting tired and falling asleep/suffering with wind/sicking it back up before I bought these (and I wasted quite a lot of money on different bottles which were only ever used once), and using these made feeding my baby so much less stressful.

Other than the ones provided while in hospital, It's really hard to find bottles and teats suitable for premature babies. These ones from Dr Brown are a real help. They use the standard size neck as the hospital bottles which means that they screw directly on to breast pumps, fit the hospital teats etc. The benefit of the Dr Brown bottle is the internal valve arrangement that allows air to flow into the bottle while baby is feeding - this works well and stops a vacuum forming in the bottle which would otherwise make it progressively harder for baby to feed. Since using these bottles our little one has increased the amount he can take at a much faster rate than he did with the standard hospital supplied teats. He gets less tired working against the vacuum and doesn't need winding nearly half as much. So the valve insert is a real benefit. The bottles themselves are a bit of a let-down. They have a maximum "safe" capacity of 60ml (any more and you risk overflowing the valve system), but the bottle is only marked from 30 - 60ml. So if your little one either needs more than 60ml or doesn't take a whole feed, it isn't always possible to tell how much they have had. The good news is that, because the bottle neck is standard hospital size, you can use the valve arrangement with the bigger (130ml) Sterifeed bottles that are supplied by most neonatal units, and my testing indicates that these will safely hold about 90ml without overflowing the valve. In summary, the freeflow valve arrangement is the single biggest reason to buy this bottle. It makes feeding a premature baby much easier. The bottle itself is a bit of a let-down, and they are very expensive, but hassle free feeds that help baby put on weight are surely worth it. Recommended.

Preemie bottles were amazing for my little one. We only had two and she stayed on them for quite a while as the teat and size of the bottle was easier for her. Once we had to up the milk over 60ml I had to change.

Good size bottles for small babies but they constantly leak

We bought these for our prem baby and continued to use the browns bottles until she was 1. Never had any problems with this and did a great job at helping with colic and reflux they are well worth the money !! I used with breastfeeding.

I have to admit, we have a mixture of various bottles of various brands. This one by far is the best — it allows you to more easily control the volume of milk or formula and when she drinks from this, she burps far less and has less gas. It is a little bit more of a chore to clean but at the end of the day it’s a pretty decent design that helps if baby has slept 4 hours and is immediately ravenously hungry. My only negative point is the design is still pretty fiddly to clean so it’s advisable to use it and then rinse it immediately or you’ll have the pain of your life cleaning dried milk or formula out of tiny holes in a fiddly apparatus. I changed my review as on reflection the fiddly cleaning is worth it.