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best formula and bottles incase I cant breastfeed

Hello,

I am planning on breast feeding but a friend has suggested I get a couple of the little cartons of ready made formula and a few bottles incase I cant do it in the middle of the night so I have something in to feed the baby with and Paul doesnt have to rush out in a blind panic to find something!

Just wondering if you have any reccommendations. What are the differences between cow and gate, amptamil and sma? Which are the best bottles to use?

I'm hoping I wont need it but thought it better to be safe than sorry!!

Sarah 37+3

Replies

  • Hi Sarah,

    i bottle feed my dd she's 10 weeks we started off with SMA but it made her be sick after her feed's we where told to keep on with it as she was a sicky baby, i did keep her on it until 7 weeks when it got too much and we tried her on cow and gate which she is now on and is hardly ever sick on, a few other mum's i know have had the same problem with sma. All the contents are near enough the same i think it comes to personal choice.

    i use avent bottle which i have had no problems with.
  • I've heard that aptamil is the closest likeness to breast milk, but I've been recommended not to get any formula in, as it will make you more likely to give up with breastfeeding if you're struggling. It's completely personal choice though!

    Not sure on bottles, I just got tommee tippee (for expressed milk) as the breast pump I got was tt. xx
  • Hi Sarah

    I was recommended the same thing and did get in the cartons, but never had to use them for the middle of the night panic!! I think I was reassured enough knowing they were there.

    Poppy has an evening bottle now and we always use Aptimal which seems the best. I started using Tommee Tippee bottles but after some windy episodes switched to Dr. Browns and they are much better!! Good luck! x x
  • We used tommee tippee bottles and cow and gate with DD. We started off with sma but we didnt like it - found the smell horrible and it stained her clothes!

    I wouldnt listen to the militant midwives telling you not to buy any formula in, they put too much stress on new mums and sometimes breast feeding doesnt come that easy and while youre trying to make it work the baby needs something. I didn't intend to bottle feed at all but had to give her some formula on night 2 and she had a least one bottle a day even once breast feeding was more established. It just didnt come easy to us even though I really wanted to do it and was determined.

    Having a small stock of fomula and bottles will ease your mind that there is something there for a hungry newborn, just in case!
  • When I had my twins I had to stay in hospital for a few days. I wasn't producing enough milk to feed both of them so the hospital advised to top them up with formula. They didn't actually ask which one I wanted to use and they automatically put them on to Aptamil so I'm guessing this was the closest to breast milk. I continued to use this and hadf no problems with either of my twins being sicky.

    I remember my health visitor asking which formula I was using and when I said apatmil they said oh good but I'm not allowed to give an opinion.

    I intend on breast feeding this time but like you intend to have a few cartons in just in case!
  • Thanks for your opinions and advice ladies, I'll get that sorted this week, think I'll feel better just knowing I've got some in 'just in case!' xx
  • we used farleys with all ours but they all were a little colicky & hungry, the first 2 ended up on the hungrier baby farleys quite early & grew out of the colic fairly quickly with the help of infacol! Then when our last one was born there was a new milk out (not new now!) Cow & gate comfort which is made for hard to settle babies & is easier on their tummy than regular formula, on recommendation from our HV when she too became colicky, we changed from Farleys & it worked wonders. I intend this time on trying my best to bf or express but if it doesnt work out, We'll be using the comfort milk this time again no question. There is also an Aptimil version of the comfort milk too.

    Aptimil and Cow &Gate are made by the same company, they both say the same things on the boxes & both have the same addresses, but Aptilmil is a little more expensive. Not sure if there is a major difference between the ingredients of the 2 forumlas but i have also heard from others that their mw say Aptimil is the closest to breast milk.

    Ive never used SMA purely becuase my sis, SIL (twice) & friend used it & all their babies had problems with consitipation & were taken off it.

    HTH a little, it is pretty hard to know whats best, but i would just say if your baby isnt happy on a particular formula then do try something else.
    Hopefully your B'feeding works out just fine & you wont need to!

    Best of luck
    4fab. x

  • I preferred Aptamil too, because I was told it was the closest to breast milk. I wouldnt go out and get too many bottles as you may need to try out a few to see what your lo will take if they need to take one. Also, if you end up having a windy baby, some bottles can make the problems worse. My son suffered terrible wind for 16wks and the Avent bottles were terrible for him - I could literally see and hear the air bubbles rising up the teet when he fed from it. I ended up going with the Dr Browns bottles which are fabulous as anti-colic.
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