Customer Reviews

Dr. Brown's 3-pack 8-ounce Standard Bottles

5 star:		(232)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

When my son was born, we tried sampling bottles from several different manufacturers, including Evenflo, Triflow, Avent, etc. Dr Brown's bottles really are the best in preventing gas, bottle leakage, and flow problems. We ended up throwing all other bottles away. I had read other reviews about the small parts being difficult to wash, but I don't really have a problem with that. We don't have a dishwasher and I end up hand washing everything. Each set of bottles comes with a tiny brush for getting into the small spaces for the inner parts to the bottles; and a regular bottle brush works fine with the bottles themselves. I can wash and fill 9 bottles in under 20 minutes (perfect timing when putting my son down for a nap). As to some reviewers complaints about leakage, it's true that if the inner tube gets full sometimes the milk can leak out the top - but this has only happened rarely and I've found that if I unscrew the cap and pull out the inner tube then put it back in, the problem is resolved. The adjustment takes less than a minute and like I said, I've only had it happen once or twice. Otherwise the bottles, nipples and all the parts are really durable - especially the nipples. When we first bought the bottles, we bought all these replacement nipples in level 1 and had to return them because we never needed them. So, my only suggestions are
1. hold off on buying extra nipples to see if you really need them (or at least don't open the package until you need to) and
2. to bypass getting 4 oz bottles and go right for the 8 oz bottles. We started off with the 4 oz bottles and now, at 3 months old, our son is already up to 6 oz at a feeding. So, we had to pack away the 4oz bottles and go out and buy a bunch of the larger size.

My baby has reflux and extra gas just makes him completely miserable. We got these bottles when he was 3-weeks old and they really do make a difference! I'm a pediatrician, so I was a skeptic when I read that the bottle claimed to reduce gas/colic. But I think I'm convinced! At the very least, it makes it easier for him to eat since there is no negative pressure created from suction... the food just flows! Thus, the baby swallows less air from the having work so hard to get food. If your baby has reflux or is very gassy, this bottle is definitely worth a try!

I have to say I would recommend this bottle to anyone. My daughter was very congested & got an ear infection at 3 weeks of age. After starting her medicine she started getting fussy and a little colic. She also used to get the hiccups at every feeding and would spit up an average of twice daily.
I had read about Dr. Brown's in several baby magazines and decided to give them a try after three days of her crying with gas. She slept through the night, a total of 6 1/2 hours the first night. She is now spitting up less, if at all and only gets the hiccups occasionally.

Dr. Brown's may be more "complicated" to clean, as others have stated, but that should be the least of your worries. If your child feels better while eating and it solves your colic problem (even a little bit), it will make you feel better too.

I have three friends that are expecting and I am going to give them a starter kit as part of their baby shower gifts. Again, I would highly recommend their products to everyone (in fact, I already have!).

Earlier this afternoon I was in a hair salon for children and had to feed my 7 week old. Another mother in the salon approached me stating she had switched to Dr. Brown's for her daughter when she started with colic. She also felt this product was wonderful. Many others must feel the same way; everytime I go into the store I always look on the shelf for this product and see that they are 9 times out of 10 the most sold product in the bottle feeding area!!!

I will never use any other type of bottle again! When my son was three weeks old, I stopped breastfeeding because of thrush and started with Avent bottles. He was constantly crying whenever awake, never napped during the day, and slept through the night. He also never seemed satisfied with the amount of formula, by seven weeks old he was taking 7 oz! Way too much! I was puzzled and the dr. said it was colic and wanted to switch to soy. I saw info about dr. brown's bottles on the internet and switched to try it out since my son didn't have any other sensitivity symptoms. There was a drastic difference with the very first feeding and he was satisfied with 5 oz, happy, calm, and fell asleep. My son is now 8 months old and he has never even run a fever, let alone have an ear infection, and has slept through the night since eight weeks old. The price was the same as the Avent bottles. Yes, there is extra time washing bottles but it is a choice--15 extra minutes a day washing the extra parts or many hours trying to calm a screaming baby, on the phone with doctor and relatives trying to figure out what's wrong, buying Mylicon drops, sleepless nights....etc. Here's what I do...rinse out bottles right after use and keep them and the parts in a big sudsy bowl. wash the bottles, then the little parts. I still use my Avent sterilizer--the doc brown's fit just fine--I figure why mess with success even though you "don't need to sterilize after three months". Run the bottles in the sterilizer while washing the little parts and then run the little parts in the sterilizer and you're done in about 30 minutes total. Get a few extra bottles if you don't want to wash every night. Knock on wood, my baby hasn't ever had a cold or run a fever and is very healthy and happy. The bottles are fabulous! I've given them to friends as gifts and will only use them from the beginning next time.

I received 2 of these bottles as samples at a baby expo. The manufacturer explained how the concept works, and I thought that was pretty neat. Well, I put away these bottles along with all my other sample bottles and forgot about them. When my son was born, I was going to breastfeed, so I'd bought the Avent bottles because they're supposed to be so great for breastfeeding moms. Well, the breastfeeding lasted a week, and I put my son on formula. I used only the Avent bottles for his first 6 weeks of life. He was constantly fussy and gassy; he almost never spit up or had diarrhea, but he cried whenever he was awake. I thought it was his formula...my mother-in-law recommended I try some other bottle. I dug through my my bag of sample bottles and came up with the Dr. Brown's. I decided to give those a try, despite all the small pieces to wash.

Well, so far I'm amazed. My baby drank 6 ounces this morning, didn't cry at all, and prompltly fell into a relaxed morning nap. He would pull off the Avent bottles and scream in pain and in hunger. He couldn't even finish 4 ounces because his stomach hurt so bad...as a result he was eating at all times of the day 1 and 2 ounces at the time. It was so frustrating! Since switching to these bottles, he's finished every 4 ounce feeding without a problem and even demanded more once he was done. I hope these bottles continue to do their job.

My son would cry in pain, his little belly would fill with gas and get hard as a rock! I would give him dropper after dropper of Mylicon and after suffering for awhile he would fall asleep exhausted! The doctor said there was nothing that we could do - he was just a gassy baby. Then I found this bottles!!! It has been 4 weeks now and not one episode!!

I can't believe more people don't know about these! They are the BEST bottle money can buy!!

With ordinary bottles when he was sucking on the nipple you can see the bubbles coming up in the formula, and he would collapse the nipple and get frustrated. With these he gets nothing but formula in his little belly!

I have been telling everyone about them, even my doctor hadn't heard of them and not she's recommending them to everyone!

...Don't wait until your baby is in pain - Go get them now!

Dr Brown's bottles may represent an increase in initial cost over more traditional bottles, but in my experience this initial cost is negated by the incredible quality and durability of this product. That is above and beyond the relief of gas and colic which can often be found from these bottles.

My daughter was a difficult eater from the start, as it turns out she has gastric Reflux and developed several feeding problems as a result. These bottles made it much easier for her to eat. Without needing to fight the vacuum of other bottles, she was able to eat more and grow. In the three weeks before these bottles, she never even regained her birth weight. Once we made the switch, her consumption went up by half to ¾ of an ounce at every bottle. She quickly started to regain desperately needed weight.

The design of these bottles greatly reduced the fight against the bottle vacuum which leads to less air being swallows as well as venting air into the bottle NOT through the nipple, so there is not unneeded air in the nipple to be swallowed. By reducing air swallowed, stomach discomfort is reduced in many colicky babies as well as many babies with reflux.

Will this reduce discomfort for every baby? Of course not. But this is a great bottle to try. If it helps, the cost of a bottle is well worth it.

In regards to cost. At first I thought these bottles were very expensive. Now ten months later, they aren't at all. I bought 12 of the 8oz bottles after the 3 4oz bottles I tried worked so well. Ten months later I have 11 of those bottles still. They have been dropped. They have been stepped on. They have gone down the stairs. They have been thrown across the room by my sometimes temperamental sweetie. The only one that broke, I accidentally ran over with a truck. It didn't even break badly; it just squished so I tossed it. Even the nipples in these bottles seem to last longer. My Brother in law seems to always be buying new nipples for his daughter, and I am rarely buying new ones. I will never buy new bottles for my daughter, since there is no conceivable way I would need more than what I have now.

As for cleaning? I wash mine in the dishwasher, the stems suspend from a little rack on the side of the top meant to set cups on and everything else is in a little basket. Maybe 3 extra minutes a day while loading the dishwasher?

I love these bottles; I now get them for everyone I know who is pregnant. They are very well made and a quality product. While they may not work for everyone, for the many babies they help, they are amazing.

My first child had reflux and I didn't want my second child to have to suffer the way he did. I saw a brochure for the Dr. Brown's bottles in my OB-GYN's office and thought "this sounds exactly like what I am looking for". When I told my pediatrician I was planning to use these she was thrilled. She said these were the best bottles on the market.

We used the pre-made bottles that we got from the hospital for days after bringing our daughter home. Then I started with Dr. Browns bottles. It was AMAZING! We saw a difference in the very first feeding. She was happier, less gassy and much more content. Don't wait! Get them and use them as soon as possible.

She starting sleeping thru the night at 5 weeks old. Now she is 3 months old and the happiest baby most people have ever seen!

These bottles are often hard to find but just ask! The sales people will tell you where they are!

When my son was first born and had colic, I bought these bottles and thought they were wonderful. If I would have reviewed them at that time, I would have given them 5 stars.

They worked great as long as I followed ALL the rules. It's true that if you don't follow their rules to a tee, you will get leaks. You cannot heat the formula anywhere above room temperature, because formula will rise into the vent tube and leak, plus make it difficult for baby to feed because formula in the tube prevents the air from being filtered to the bottom of bottle, and he gets lots of air. Washing all those parts was a pain, but I thought it was worth it if it helped prevent gas and colic.

The problem after using these for only 8 weeks - THEY STARTED TO LEAK NO MATTER WHAT I DID! Even ready-to-use formula fresh from the can would rise up into the vent tube and leak everywhere. My son would cry and cry because the vent tube was almost choking-off the normal rythm of feeding that he had been accustomed to and he was getting tons of air. I would get so frustrated, I would start crying, too.

I called Dr Brown's toll free number and went through the entire question session - No, I never shook formula in the bottles; No, I never heat above room temperature; No, I don't leave any of the top assembly or the nipple on the bottle when I heat it; Yes, I'm sure all the parts were assembled correctly and tight.

Come-on, these had been working fine for me during the first 8 weeks - how can they say that I'm doing something wrong all of a sudden if I hadn't changed the way I was doing anything?

Dr. Browns even sent me replacement rubber stoppers, and they didn't do anything to solve leaks. I think the problem is the vent tubes. I don't think they are durable. I think regular heat and use wears them down or warps them to the point that they're useless because they no longer make a perfect seal around the rubber stopper. I mostly hand-washed in hot tap water and rarely placed vent tubes in the dishwasher. If I did place parts in the dishwasher they only went in top rack in one of those bottle-baskets. My dishwasher is not one of those fancy "heat-the-water" types, so I know I didn't expose parts to too much heat.

Bottom line, I tried the Playtex Vent-Aire's and those aren't perfect either, but they're better than these, and cheaper, too, plus less parts to wash. My son is accustomed to the faster flow of the Dr. Brown's nipples and hated the Playtex nipples, so I now use the Playtex Vent-Aire bottles with the Dr. Brown's nipples. Yes, I know you're not supposed to do that, but I've had enough of following these manufacturer's rules to no avail - the Dr. Brown's nipples work fine on the Playtex Vent-Aire's - just make sure you push them in all the way and that you tighten top really well.

If you're buying bottles for the first time, my advice is buy the Playtex Vent Aires with one package of the Dr Brown's Nipples in Preemie and one of the Size 1 packs. If the Playtex nipples are too slow, try the Dr Browns preemies and then the size 1's to find the nipples that flow best for your little one. It's sooo true when people tell you that all babies are different - some like slow flowing nipples, some like faster flowing, some are somewhere in between - you won't know until you have your little one. If you buy the Vent-Aires, you will also need to buy one or two regular (buy cheap) bottles to heat your formula in, because you can't heat Formula in the Vent-Aire bottles - they have that rubber sieve in the bottom that might get damaged by heat.

One more tip to avoid all air with the Playtex Vent Aire's - when your baby starts to feed, and bottle is upside-down, loosen the bottom of the bottle and he won't get any air at all....just remember to tighten the bottom again before you bring bottle back right-side-up.

My advice, stay away from the Dr Brown's bottles. You'll either be disappointed from the beginning like so many other reviewers on this board, or you will be thrilled at first and eventually be disappointed because they don't hold up well. And even the company can't even figure out what is wrong - they told me they're pretty new - so if you call them you might get a meany-weenie that tries to blame you for the faulty mechanics of their parts.

Good luck. :)

I LOVE these bottles. My daughter has reflux, colic, gas troubles, spitting up, you name it and she has it. I was told that Avent was the best and had read about them so I decided that was the bottle for us. I SPENT $200 ON THE ENTIRE AVENT SYSTEM. After 3 horrible months using those bottles I decided I had enough of them and I would find something else, no matter what the cost! I tried EVERY brand out there from the cheapest to the most expensive and this one always came out well ahead of the rest. They fit her mouth perfectly, the nipple is soft enough for her and she will actually finally EAT! With Avent she could not get a good enough latch and I was going through 2-3 bibs per feeding plus having to change her! She no longer has gas pains (and I don't have to give her gas drops), or scrunches up in pain from the colic and swallowing air, and I barely have to use 1 bib per feeding! I can't believe we ever made it for 3 months without these bottles. She does still spit up a little bit but that is normal for all babies. I tell everyone I know about our experience with them. I LOVE THESE BOTTLES, even with the extra hassle to clean them. It's a lot less heartbreaking and time consuming to clean a little extra than to spend hours consoling a screaming baby in pain. THANK YOU DR. BROWN, I don't know how you did it but THANK YOU.