Picking a bottle

Choosing a baby bottle is important, especially if you baby will be switching between breast and bottle!

In my opinion, the most important thing to consider when picking a baby bottle is the nipple shape.

Nipple shape: the “ideal” nipple will have a gradual slope to allow baby to deeply latch onto the bottle like they do on the breast. Some examples of “ideal” nipple shapes are Evenflo balance + Wide Neck, Lansinoh, and Pigeon Wide Neck. If you are looking for a glass baby bottle with an “ideal” nipple shapes, check out my Minimizing Microplastics post. A nipple with a gradual slope prevents shallow latching on the bottle nipple and is especially important for a baby that is going back and forth between bottle and breast (if they learn to latch shallowly on a bottle, they may start doing this at the breast).

My preferred bottles are listed in the section above, but check out the bottom of this post to see a full list of plastic and glass baby bottles.

Introducing a bottle

There are many reasons to introduce a bottle! For example, baby needs to be supplemented, you want another caregiver to give your baby a bottle, you want to introduce a bottle before the 6 week mark to avoid bottle refusal, returning to work, etc.

Babies are born with the reflex to suck on anything you put in their mouth. This reflex begins to disappear around 6 weeks, and at this point sucking becomes a choice rather than a reflex. It is important to introduce a bottle before the 6 week mark in order to prevent bottle refusal. My professional recommendation is to introduce the bottle around 3-4 weeks, once breastfeeding is well established. Once you introduce the bottle, it is also important to continue exposure once a day or at least every other day so they get practice and are accustomed to taking a bottle. Important note: you should be pumping to replace that feeding any time baby gets a bottle in order to protect your supply.

There are a few things to consider when starting to introduce a bottle: the nipple shape and pace feeding.

We talked about nipple shape above, now let’s talk about pace feeding!

Pace feeding: the way you bottle feed your baby can make a big difference. The purpose of pace feeding is to mimic the flow of breastmilk baby gets at the breast. To pace feeding, you can sit baby up on your lap or lay them on their side in your lap. Stroke baby’s lips or use the nipple to add a little pressure on the chin to encourage baby to open their mouth. You want to have them latch on the bottle similarly to latching on the breast rather than trying to shove the nipple in their closed mouth. When they do latch onto the bottle, you can let them suck on it a few times before tipping milk into the nipple. This is similar to breastfeeding, when baby has to suck a few times to stimulate a letdown before they get any milk. Ideally you will be holding the bottle horizontal to the ground so that only half of the nipple is filled with milk. The goal is for the flow to be similar to what they would experience at the breast to prevent bottle preference (really a flow preference). It should take your baby 10-15 minutes to finish a bottle. Watch your baby’s behavior and impose breaks as needed. If baby is pausing to breathe/swallow, you can tip the bottle slightly so there is no milk in the nipple, making sure that no milk is able to pour into their mouth while they take a break.

Find more bottle recommendations below:

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Evenflo Balance + Wide Neck (plastic)

Evenflo Narrow Neck (plastic)

Evenflo Classic (glass)

Pigeon (plastic)

Pigeon (glass)

Lansinoh (plastic)

Dr Brown Narrow Neck (plastic)

Dr Brown Narrow Neck (glass)