Seeking Advice on Bottle Nipples

Breastfed babies can stay on slow flow. It more closely resembles breastfeeding. My daughter is 6 mo. and has no problems with slow flow nipples. I have no intention of moving her up.

Hey N.! I wondered about all that too with my daughter. She ended up hating the stage 3, it was too fast of a flow and it choked her all the time. The doc said to just stick with waht she was comfortable with, which was stage 2 up until we switched her to sippy cups at 1 year. :)

You don't have to switch them out at all unless he is getting frustrated or taking a rediculously long time to eat his bottle. My son was BF up until a year but did get one or 2 bottles a day and stayed with the level one nipples the whole time. If you are using 1s and want to switch, I would be careful about going straight to 3s as the flow may be too fast for your son. I would move to 2s and let him get used to that and then move to 3s...but like I said, you could stay with 1s indefinitely.

My two cents -- don't switch him if he's not complaining about the slow flow. Depending on how long you plan to continue breastfeeding, I would keep him on the stage 1 nipples as it's the most similar to nursing (in terms of flow). For my now 4 year old, I actually never moved her off of stage 1 nipples, and she didn't care (we weaned her off a bottle completely at 12 months). My now 10 month old uses stage 2 Dr. Brown nipples, but she was protesting the stage 1 nipples....and I weaned her (from nursing) at 7 months.

Best of luck,
C.

mine stayed at stage 1 because for one my daughter didnt care. thn reasontwo was because the loner it takes them to get the milk out the less they drink. i feel that with the faster nipples babies finish way too fast and still feel hungry and get upset. with the slower ones it takes more time and when they are finally done they feel full and wrn out the same way they would from nursing. number thre its most like the breast because like i mentioned they have to work harder. my daughter stayed with stage one the whole time she had a bottle which was til she was about 15 months old.

Depends on your baby -- you know him best. I kept my second child on stage 1 nipples for a long time because the stage 2s kept causing her to choke. Strange, because breastmilk comes out a lot faster than even stage 3 bottles...but nonetheless I kept her on what she was most comfortable with. The "stages" are simply guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules.

The stages are really just the size of the hole. The higher the stage, the more flows through. If he is having trouble getting stuff through, change up. I changed to the stage 2, and never went to the stage 3 (with both kids)
M.

If he is getting the milk out, you never have to switch them out. My older daughter never took over a Stage 1 nipple. I doubt this one will even get past a newborn nipple b/c she has issues with nursing after she gets a bottle (which was only once, it was that awful).

My 5 month old son also uses the Born Free bottles. I tried at 4 months to move him up to Stage 2 and he gagged from the extra milk flow. We are on Stage 1 and will probably stay until at least 6 months then I will try Stage 2 again. I think you just have to base it on what your son is comfortable with. If he isn't taking a really long time to drink a bottle and doesn't seem frustrated, I would leave it be. I don't know if you will be able to go straight to Stage 3 though - obviously it's a big difference.

Hi N.,

I have to agree with the other moms. You really don't have to switch to stage 2 or 3 unless your baby fusses. My 3 kids stuck on stage 1 and it's actually better for them, so they don't GULP the milk down way too fast. I changed my middle son to stage 2 closer to when he was 10 months, just because I added the rice cereal to it.

:)

i definitely wouldn't switch straight from stage 1 to 3, no matter which month you make the switch. that will be a dramatic change, and your son will be overwhelmed with such a stronger and faster milk flow, especially since at the breast milk flows more slowly.

I just want to add to the comments. I agree that there is no reason to move them up unless they are frustrated. There is no rule that says they have to move up stages--it is not a developmental thing. When we would give my son stage 3 nipples, they just poured down his throat. We would give him a bottle in the car to help him fall asleep on a long trip home and the bottle would be empty before we even got out of the parking lot at the mall! Then he would cry b/c it was all gone already. Also, he would turn them upside down and they'd spill all over the place. So we just stopped using them altogether and stuck with stage 1 or 2 until moving him onto a sippy cup.

I switched to number 2 at about 3 months. They can only suck for so long, and although they get liquid through number 1, they end up getting tired sucking and not getting enough milk. You could try going right to n.3, but the gradual transition worked nicely for us. I would definitely move up a size though.

i never switched my son off of stage 1 nips. I tried stage 2's for a brief time and he was getting choked up, so i went back to the ones. I agree, if he doesnt have a problem with slow flow stick with that.