Bottles for a 13-month old

[Pepper]

Hi all,

I will be traveling soon (to Seoul) to pick up DS#2. He will be ~13 months old at pick-up; the last report I got said that he was drinking ~a liter of formula per day, at age 10 months. I have no idea if he's been started on solid food yet (but i'll have the opportunity to ask his foster mom when I go).

I am clueless about bottles - DS#1 is was also born in Korea, but had a cleft lip & palate so we had to use special bottles. He also went cold turkey on the bottles at the tender age of 15 months: he wasn't allowed a bottle at all for 6weeks after his cleft palate repair. By the time his post-op care was over, there didn't seem any point to going back to a bottle since he drank from a cup.

Anyway, I have been reading and asking friends with bio kids for suggestions but am overwhelmed with choices. (We do know lots of adoptvie families IRL, but most of them have kids who came home around the time of our DS#1, who is almost 4 years old, or earlier. Things have changed!). Most of the bottles seem to be "systems" that start off with newborns (duh) and I can't figure out where 13 months should fit in the spectrum.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[AlbrightRC]

We used avent bottles with our son who was 10 months old when we picked him up in Ethiopia. We knew ahead of time that these were the bottles he was used to as they were the ones used by our agencies care center. Is there a way you can find out before you go if he's used to a certain type of bottle?
Renee

[bigpassport]

Congratulations!!!! How exciting. All I know is the Playtex Drop-Ins system. The nipples are slow, medium and fast. My DS is 9 months and on the fast nipple. I would assume fast is what you'd want to use for your LO. I agree with PP to try to get information before you go. Good luck!!

[Pepper]

Thanks for the responses, I will ask our SW if they can find out about the bottles. Sometimes it's hit or miss with those types of requests...I like the idea of the fast-flow nipples, though - our little man was 25 lbs already at the tender age of 10 months. He is a big eater!

[srhs]

At 13-mo, I wouldn't stress much. If you can find out the current brand, great! Seems everything at BRU or WM or Target is bpa free. I'd go with cheap and fast flow and call it good. Maybe get 1 of 3-4 different kinds. Then, if he doesn't like 2 of them, you don't have a big investment and can buy more of the 2 he does.

CONGRATULATIONS!

eta--For traveling, we did the RTF bottles with DS1. Expensive but soooooo much easier to travel with. Just screw on a nipple, toss the rest! The formula checks do work on these if you can get your hands on some of those.

[wellyes]

Congratulations, wow!! I think most bottles would probably be fine. Be sure to get the fast-flow nipples instead of slow-flow for that age.

[AlbrightRC]

I know everyone is saying get the faster flow nipples but our son at 10 months was still using stage 1 nipples which are a slow flow. If you can't find out what they are using now I would suggest bringing different nipple sizes. None of the babies in our group had used anything larger then a stage 1 and they couldn't handle the faster flow nipples. We stuck with the stage 1's right up until he came off bottles at 14 months.

[sadie427]

I would get just a few Playtex drop-in's for the trip w/ the liners, they are so much easier to deal with when traveling. Then keep using them at home or transition to a beginner sippy.

[Pepper]

Hi all- we got home last weeke and I thought i'd just post an update. I did ask the foster mom what kind of bottles she used, and she told me "round nipple." Ummm, aren't all nipples round? In retrospect, I think she meant a round hole in the nipple, vs. cross-cut....I went to a store about bought some bottles before we left Seoul, but later realized that i'd bought cross-cut nipples. Still later I realized that I bought slow-flow nipples! And little brother drinks his bottle in, oh, about 5 minutes. Fortunately, he is not the LEAST bit picky and long as there's any bottle at all, he's happy.

One funny thing: the day we picked him up, we took him back to the hotel and i got out one of the bottles the FM had prepared for him. Hmmm, says I, he's not drinking very much...turns out that there was a little disc thingy on top of the bottle, as a barrier between the bottle and the nipple - I guess it was for traveling? So the bottle didn't leak? What do I know - bottles for cleft palate babie don't really leak, you have to squeeze them to get the milk out...anyway it was pretty funny whenI finally realized what the problem was.

Thanks again for your help and suggestions!

[JustMe]

Congratulations! I'm glad everything is going well.