Avent Newborn Starter Set

...bottle brush designed to clean Avent teats and a soother. Pretty good -nothing in there I didn't need (except perhaps you might think you don't want to buy a soother, but having one thrown in was actually a really good idea, is it gave me the chance to see if one helped without needing to go and buy a big pack). I did in fact use it for a few weeks when she was very tiny, then she learned to suck her thumb and I never used it again after 3 months.
...I loved Avent bottles as they are nice and wide for easy cleaning and feel nice to hold. The teats seem good - as I said my babies were basically breastfed, but they always took one of these without complaint if they needed to. Personally I like silicone teats a lot better than rubber ones - I like the look of them, they are easier to inspect for holes and they don't go sticky before they start to perish, or crumble.

The bottle brush ... more

I bought this for £15 in Mothercare before my daughter was born. I hoped (and succeeded) in breast feeding but did want the option of getting her used to bottles as I was planning to back to work.

I think this set represented excellent value for money. You get two large (9oz) bottles and two smaller ones (4oz), 4 newborn teats, a really good bottle brush designed to clean Avent teats and a soother. Pretty good -nothing in there I didn't need (except perhaps you might think you don't want to buy a soother, but having one thrown in was actually a really good idea, is it gave me the chance to see if one helped without needing to go and buy a big pack). I did in fact use it for a few weeks when she was very tiny, then she learned to suck her thumb and I never used it again after 3 months.

I knew from my other babies that I loved Avent bottles as they are nice and wide for easy cleaning and feel nice to hold. The teats seem good - as I said my babies were basically breastfed, but they always took one of these without complaint if they needed to. Personally I like silicone teats a lot better than rubber ones - I like the look of them, they are easier to inspect for holes and they don't go sticky before they start to perish, or crumble.

The bottle brush lasted months and I liked it so much I went and bought another - it has a cool rubbery bit on the handle end for getting into teats which is really useful.

I might not have bought the 4oz ones as they aren't much use after the first few weeks for a full feed, but I loved them in the early weeks when expressing breast milk. For those of you who have done that, you know how difficult it can be at times to gt much out, and if you've gone to the bother of sterilising everything and then you only get two and a half ounces it can be be a bit depressing. The great thing about these small bottles is that two ounces half fills them and looks respectable, so you can put that in the fridge, feel OK about it, add another two ounces later in the day and then you have reasonable 4oz feed for a two month old baby without wringing guilt out of yourself like a wet hankie. I have put the bottles into the freezer with breast milk in, and they freeze well, and they also microwave and go in the dishwasher. Perfect!

If you are planning to bottle feed completely then this will not be enough stuff, but I also bought a breast pump which came with two bottles so I had six in total and that was fine for expressing milk and the occasional formula feed as the babies got older. My son has used the bottles too and they have lasted well - the writing doesn't come off too badly in the dishwasher either. He is now one and still drinking follow-on milk from a bottle at night time, so they have been great value for money.

Avent has trainer spouts which are interchangable with teats so I do still use the small four ounce bottles with a trainer spout for juice. during he day. You can even put handles on them (from the trainer cup) which I do with the 4oz bottles sometimes - I think the big bottles would be a bit hard for him to hold on his own because of their length, but the small ones are just great.

So all in all a great, great buy. Everything used over and over, and the bottles themselves passed on to the next baby.

So many "newborn" packs contain un-necessary frippery that people buy as a gift and is really either a nice luxury at best, or a waste of money and useless at worst. This on the other hand would be a fab gift - whether breast or bottle feeding you would get use out of it, and even if you were dead against soothers that's a small part of the pack so it wouldn't matter if you didn't use that. The bottles alone are about £4 if you buy them individually and the bottle brush cost me £3.99 when I replaced it. So I reckon you save three or four pounds buying them this way (depending how much you pay for this of course - there is a range), even if it is not a gift.

My babies never had any problems feeding from Avent bottles - the only criticism I would make is that if you don't check carefully when you screw the white ring round the teat they sometimes leak out of the side. Take it off, smooth the teat down and it's fine, but you can get a leak in your bag, or a wet baby! 

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