Avent Airflex Feeding Bottle

It's a very long story, and not a pleasant one, but although I breastfed solely for 3 weeks we needed a little extra milk to sustain our daughters appetite. Unfortunately, our daughter refused bottles and it took us around 3 months of heartache before we discovered these bottles.

The teats on these bottles seemed to be the best liked by our daughter and I feel it's because they weren't 'trying' to mimic a real breast unlike other branded bottles (no matter how life-like they may be they just aren't the same).

The teats come in a variety of flows and it can be trial and error to find the correct one, we found most success always using one slightly slower than that recommended for our daughters age group. There is also a variable flow teat that is used for thicker liquids and/or being able to vary liquid flow depending on the position the teat is placed in the baby's mouth. Personally I feel these are a little too complicated for their own good and we have only used it once.

The teats themself are made of silicone and are very soft/pliable. We were concerned with the number "1" and "2" flow teats that they were wearing out quickly causing the flow to become too fast for our daughter (the speed of bottle feeding seemed to be her particular problem) and we were constantly replacing them. This hasn't been a problem with the "3" and "4" flow teats which have lasted as long as suggested on the packaging.

The bottles are assembled as a main bottle body, then a ring (valve) followed by the teat which is pushed through a bottle neck ring and finally a lid. Assembling them is very easy and all parts are easy to clean. We sterilise them in a microwave steam steriliser which works well. All parts (excl teats) have stood the test of time very well.

Avent have a clever universal sizing system which allows you to mix/match across their range, for example allowing you to progress through the two bottle sizes (4oz and 9oz) bottles onto beakers in gradual steps. For example there are beaker handles that also fit onto these bottles by placing it on before you screw on the bottle neck/teats, as will the beaker spouts which can be pushed into the bottle neck rings instead of the teats. This is the system that we used to introduce our little girl to a beaker and it has worked really well.

For very young babies the packaging also mentions that they help to reduce 'fussing' in the evenings - which made us both laugh when we read it. To be honest, I'm not sure quite what this is means as we needed to still give our daughter a solution with every bottle to help with 'fussing/wind' until she was moving around more.

In short I cannot stress enough how much these bottles helped and would highly recommend them to anyone who is having similar problems (in fact it was our GP who has been a paediatrician that suggested Avent for our circumstances).