This is mostly for you Mom’s (or Dad’s!) that have an EBF baby and looking for a bottle. I had a hard time finding something my baby would like. I hope this is okay to put here.
FYI, I do not work for this company or am affiliated with it in any way. I am just a normal working Mom who is EBF her baby with the loving support of her husband, who is a stay-at-home-dad.
To give a little bit of background, my son is now hitting 4 months in a few days here, and I breastfeed him exclusively. It was hard going back to work because he would be at home with his Dad crying from hunger because the bottle wasn’t Mommy’s breast. We went through a few different bottles that were supposed to mimic the breast like Tommie Tippe, Nuk, Comotomo, etc. He would pretty much spit it back out, and the worst part about it is that these nipples would drip constantly, even at the lowest flow. It really made trying to feed him messy, and the constant drip, drip, drip of the milk into his mouth when he was fighting against it would make him choke and more upset.
It has been a pretty hard battle for me, but especially for Dad because he was the one at home trying to feed the poor little guy! We pretty much tried all the advice that has been given to parents who are EBF and going back to work with the bottle thing and finally settled with, “I guess we’ll just have to deal with it because it will get better as time goes on even if he’s only eating a little bit and crying himself to sleep the entire day because he’s hungry.” It was pretty stressful, but more so for the Dad.
Anywho, me being who I am couldn’t leave it as just that, so I did some searching and found out about the Bare air-free that was supposed to really work like the breast, where the baby had to actively suck for milk to come out, and it wouldn’t constantly drip and get milk all over the baby.
Now, don’t get me wrong, eventually, the baby HAD to eat but when he did take milk from the bottle it would only be about an ounce or two from my work day. That’s 1-2 ounces a day in 10 hours.
I decided to only place one order because of the price ($14.99) and didn’t want to waste money on another bottle that he would hate and fight against. So, when my order finally came in (they just started filling in orders like August 1st), Dad put the bottle together, and gave it to him. He took to it immediately as far as eating went. The only real complaint the baby had was that he wasn’t able to hold onto it like the Tommy Tippee because that bottle is more lumpy. I really wish I ordered more than one, but like I said previously, didn’t want to waste money on a product that the baby might not like and only eat from it begrudgingly. He now eats from the bottle happily with this one.
The one thing about the bottle that can get annoying is that there are a few parts to it. You pretty much have to disassemble and reassemble the bottle after every feeding and cleaning to be able to use it again, but this annoyance is negated (for me at least) by the fact that my baby is finally eating throughout the day while I’m at work.
When I get back home (today is a slow day here so that means a short day!), I’ll take some pictures or have Dad do a video of baby eating if people want, but you can find videos on their website that shows you the bottle, how to put it together, and the different parts.
https://www.bittylab.com/Bare_UsageHowto.html
TL;DR
Pros: Mimics nipple latch (nipple extends when he’s actively sucking), does not drip!, happy baby, good quality material, BPA (and other chemicals) free.
Cons: A lot of parts (but negated by baby eating), price ($14.99 per, plus $6 s&h), online only (I think they have plans to put it into retailers but I don’t know much about that except remember reading it somewhere on their site)
❤❤❤❤❤