The concept:
It's hard to imagine that there is much technology involved with a milk bottle, but years of scientific research into reducing baby burps, choking and colic have made the baby bottle far more sophisticated than you'd think!
Most baby bottles come with teats which begin with a slow flow for the earliest feeding needs (newborns whose mothers can't for whatever reason breastfeed, for example) to fast-flow teats for hungry guzzlers who are nearly one year old and well on their way to a full solids diet and drinking from a cup.
In the main, you adjust the flow of the milk from the bottle by buying the next size up in teats - Avent size 4, for example, has four holes in the teat to allow a greater amount of milk through per mouthful - but with the Munchkin range, you keep the teat and shift the flow by twisting the top to a higher setting.
In action:
The design is chunky but not over heavy so young hands can hold it confidently while parents find it easy to use when feeding younger babies. Also, the bottle is 'vented' to improve its performance with new feeders whose breathing and drinking habits can cause air bubbles and vacuums to form. These can be dealt with easily without the baby swallowing too much unneccessary air.
The teat of the Tri-Flow is soft and wide, making it quite distinctive. Some babies have problems latching on to harder teats and prefer something softer which is closer to the nipple experience for them. Most parents find one that's right by trial and error, so the Munchkin teat does offer a new option.
The Tri-Flow teat system has three flow rates: fast, medium and slow. The ring and teat will fit quite a few other brands of wide-necked baby bottles, too, so you could try out the teats without buying the bottle, if you want to give them a go first.
What you get
Munchkin wide-neck bottles come in the regular two sizes: 150ml (£4.49) and 250ml (£4.99), both of which of course include the teat and ring. There is also a twin pack of wide neck teats with one Tri-Flow ring for £3.79.
A particularly funky bottle brush set (£2.49) is also available in the Munchkin range (which will be increasing as it is introduced in the UK via Mothercare throughout 2006). The brush easily cleans all corners of the bottle and comes in rather funky colours! More importantly, the little teat brush fits back into the handle of the bottle brush so you don't spend half your life looking for it in the kitchen drawers.
