If you breastfeed exclusively up to one year, you will never need to familiarise yourself with the joy of bottle cleaning, sterilising and such like. Lucky
you!
However, most people do at some point, need to use bottles, even if they never use formula milk. Whether it's for feeds from expressed milk, or a
crossover time when they return to work, or when they are getting their one-year-old into the milk-drinking habit but their child hasn't quite mastered
using a cup yet, bottles are almost always a feature of a new parents' kitchen.
If you're still wondering what kind of bottle will be best for your family, check out the ThinkBaby Buyer's Guide to Feeding Bottles. In the meantime, we
thought we'd highlight some of our favourite feeding accessories currently available online from Jojo Maman Bebe.
If you're looking for feeders that look and feel a little more 'breast' than bottle, Jojo Maman Bebe sell two of the funkiest alternatives on the
market.
The Breast Bottle
is the nearest we've seen to looking like a work of art! At £21 (7 floz, 200ml size), it's not a cheap option, and you might not fit quite so many into a
steriliser at a time as you would with NUK, Avent and the like, but it's soft feel and comforting shape is designed to help the transition from breast to
bottle. It's low-flow 'nipple' is adjustable as your baby gets more used to bottle feeding, and, despite it's shape, it is quite easy to keep clean (and is
dishwasher safe).
If you like the booby-style but not the stylish price tag of the Breast Bottle, how about the Closer to
Nature bottles at £9 for a three-pack? The bottles are 9 floz, 260ml size and have a wide neck to evoke the shape of the breast. The silicone
teat is designed to soften and be more supple when the liquid is tipped up, so it recreates the suckling experience for a baby who is used to
breastfeeding.
In terms of accessories, apart from choosing your sterliser, you also have to think about those other details than will make the daily routine of
preparing bottles safely and cleanly, less painful. You won't believe how much you will come to love the right brush to thoroughly clean those
milk-filled teats! We love the Bottle and Teat
Scrubber (£6) which can get into all those little spaces for you.
In our house, we always survived on leaving bottles etc out to dry on pieces of kitchen towel, but a nifty little thing to put on your gift list, is the Bottle Drying Rack
which is like a dinky mug tree for teats, bottles and rings, £8.
Happy washing, rinsing and feeding!