Remedial pumping help needed! Is this inefficient or is it just me?

[swan01]

OK - Here are some probably stupid questions from an inexperienced mom...

My daughter is almost 3 weeks old and I have been using my Ameda Purely Yours pump occasionally when necessary. I have been pumping into the little bottles that came with the pump and dumping the milk into Lansinoh freezer bags. If I want to feed her a bottle of frozen milk, I will then need to dump thawed milk into a bottle. So, now the milk has been in 3 different containers? Right? I am convinced that there has to be an easier way.

Now, if I wanted to feed her the milk directly instead of freezing it - are there nipples that I can attach directly to the bottles that I am pumping into? Or do I dump it into a different bottle?

We want to introduce a bottle this weekend, so I have a couple Playtex nurser bottles and an Avent bottle to see what she will take - but neither nipple seems to fit on the Ameda bottles.

The new Avent Via system seems pretty efficient, but their pump conversion kit does not say it is compatible with the Ameda pump. Has anyone used it?

[wreckgirl1]

It has been a while since I've pumped, but I'll take a stab.

The Ameda bottles have an opening the same size as standard bottles (NOT wide-mouth, e.g. Avent). So the standard, non-wide-mouth bottles are completely interchangeable with the Ameda pump bottles. So if you go to the store and buy some, say, Evenflo bottles (I know that works because that is what I used), you can attach them directly to the pump and pump into them. Then when you go to feed you can use the nipples that came with them. OR, you can use the ring/nipples that came with the standard bottles on your Ameda bottle and feed directly from there. My DH (who did most of the bottle feeding) says you can also stick an Evenflo nipple into the ring (the thing that screws on top, sans the disk) and feed that way. But I don't know if you can use other types of nipple with the Ameda ring. The Evenflo bottles are $4 for 4 at Target, and I think Gerber is priced comparably (though I don't know how well Gerber nipples fit on the Ameda bottle).

You can freeze in the bottles instead of bags, but for space-saving reasons, I used bags.

I didn't do this, but couldn't you alternatively get a disposable bottle system and feed directly from the bags (once thawed)? You know, the kind of bottle that you put the bags in? I know Playtex makes one. I bought one to try, but then DH decided he didn't want to shake things up and we didn't freeze much, anyway.

HTH.

Cynthia

[KrisM]

I use an Avent pump and do freeze some. I pour from the bottle into Gerber bags for freezing. Then when we want to use them, I use the disposible type of bottle, also Avent, with the bags. It's a plastic bottle, but you just insert the bag inside and add a nipple. Beware that the nipples for the disposible and non-disposible Avent bottles are different! They'll leak if you use the wrong ones.