Geek in Heels - Page 111

Nov 23, 2010 • In Baby, Claire, Parenting, Reviews

Our Favorite Bottles: Dr. Brown’s

Reader Christine asked,

i’m 4 weeks until my delivery and wanted to see what type of bottles you are using now. i have the medela bottles for feeding with orthodontic nipples, born free, and breastflow. can you review what bottles you tried and what you liked/disliked? i just received my target completion certificate and want to hold off on purchasing bottles until i can get a better idea of what bottles are really good.

This was a very timely question, because we had just switched bottles last week and I had been meaning to blog about our great bottle search.

In the past two weeks, when Claire was suffering from horrible colic, we decided to try different bottles to see if a different design will help with the fussiness. (After all, so many brands these days claim to help reduce colic.)

We had been using Medela bottles because they are the most convenient to use with my breast pump, but we have not been using their nipples. Instead, we have been using the latex nipples that come with the Similac nipple-ready bottles, because we discovered by accident that they fit perfectly with the Medela bottles. Besides, we had received about ten of them at the hospital, and who are we to pass up freebies?

Besides, Claire hated the Medela nipples.

Then I read that the Similac nipples are not designed for long-term use, and that latex nipples should not be boiled after each use (which we had been doing) because it will deteriorate them faster. Oops.

Since we knew that Claire would be outgrowing our 5oz Medela bottles soon, and just in case another bottle/nipple design might help alleviate the colic, we went on what I like to call our great bottle hunt of 2010. These are what we have tried:

The First Years Breastflow
The First Years Soothie
Gerber NUK
MAM
Philips AVENT
Playtex Drop-Ins
Playtex VentAire

While I’m sure that each bottle has its merits (and its own fanbase as I only tried the ones with good user reviews), we soon discovered that Claire seemed to have a serious problem with silicone nipples. She would suck for a few seconds and spit it out — no matter the shape of the nipple — and proceed to give us an angry look as if to say, “What the heck did you just put in my mouth?”

(The funny thing is, her favorite pacifiers, Philips AVENT, have silicone nipples. Perhaps she associated the feel of silicone with pacifiers and latex with milk?)

This created a bit of a problem, because most bottle manufacturers — at the ones that are supposed to help with gas and colic according to reviews — only have silicone nipples. Since the Playtex Drop-Ins were the only ones that have latex nipples as an option, we decided to go with those for the time being.

Then the Dr. Brown bottles arrived from Amazon.

I was skeptical at first, seeing that they have silicone nipples. But these bottles have gotten great reviews so I decided to try them out…

…and Claire loved them!

I’m not sure what it was about the bottles (we use the wide-neck version) that helped my baby take to them immediately — was it the shape of the nipple? The vacuum-free design? All we knew was that it was the first time in over a week that she finished an entire 4oz bottle in one sitting, and we were elated.

As for the colic? Now I’m not saying that Dr. Brown’s Bottles were the cure for our colic troubles, but they certainly helped a lot. Perhaps it was the combination of the new bottles and our baby finally passing the 6-week hurdle, but within 12 hours of switching to Dr. Brown’s, Claire went down for the night after crying for only 1 hour (as opposed to the 3+ hours we had been experiencing before).

So to answer Christine’s question, our favorite bottles are Dr. Brown’s Wide-Necks.

Some babies are not picky about bottles at all, but ours was. And while choosing the best bottle for your baby is certainly a game of trial and error (and a potentially expensive one at that), you might get lucky and hit the jackpot with your first or second try.

Your baby might not need a fancy bottle at all. A friend discovered that her baby’s favorite bottles were the plain Gerber bottles she bought at a local pharmacy for $2 for a pack of 3.

But our family is a Dr. Brown’s convert and we will be sticking with this brand. Sure, the extra parts require more attention, but it only adds about 30 additional seconds to assembly and cleaning time.

And our baby’s happiness (and our sanity) is worth it.

Disclosure: I have not been compensated by Dr. Brown’s, or any other company, for writing this post. This is based on my own experience and my baby’s preferences.

My Goth Baby (And More Breastfeeding Woes)

In my last post I asked if anyone could guess why my breastmilk has turned purple.

Well, kalen, mlwindc, and LatteLove got it right: it is due to gentian violet, which I am using to treat our latest bout of thrush.

While gentian violet is proven to be one of the most effective remedies against thrush, I had been reluctant to try it because of the ick factor, the “ick” being that it is messy. Gentian violet is a deep purple solution that seems to get everywhere once the bottle is open, and it is almost always guaranteed to stain fabrics permanently and skin temporarily.

Before giving Claire a cotton swab of the purple stuff, I had dabbed her lips and area around her mouth with Vaseline as suggested by numerous sources in order to prevent staining, but it only helped a little as you can see in this picture:

This is actually a lot better than last night, when the purple stuff was all over her chin and cheeks.

My nipples look pretty comical as well after undergoing the gentian violet treatment, resembling bruised and tumorous boysenberries. I would show you a picture but I’ll keep this blog PG-13.

We will continue with the gentian violet for a couple more days, and I am praying that this will work.

First, Claire developed thrush in her mouth and passed it on to me. The thrush in my boobs led to my developing mastitis in my right breast. And by taking antibiotics to treat the mastitis, I managed to develop thrush again, this time with a vengeance — I get hot, shooting, searing pains in my right breast every time I pump. I have tried not emptying the breast completely and nursing directly in order to try to lessen the pain, but have had no success so far. The pain lasts for about an hour after each pumping session and it is so bad that my body jerks and spasms every time another jolt passes through my chest.

The mastitis and thrush has lessened the milk supply in my right breast considerably. Meanwhile, my left breast seems to be producing extra milk in order to compensate, and so I am suffering from oversupply and engorgement there.

So for the first hour after each pumping/nursing session, my right boob is in excruciating pain. But as soon as my right boob starts to feel better, my left boob gets painfully engorged to a point where it hurts to hold my baby.

Oh, and my boobs are lopsided now too. Lovely.

It has been like this for the past week, and J is starting to lose his patience. Not with my (lack of) recovery, but with how miserable I have been. Last night, as I was unable to show my face at a family dinner due to my breast pain — choosing to lie in bed instead, spasming with each jolt of pain with tears in my eyes — he held me tight and told me that he would much rather that we give our daughter formula than my continuing to be in so much pain and feel like a bad mother for continuing to have so much trouble breastfeeding.

I know that quitting breastfeeding will be no easy task either — engorgement in both breasts! — but it is looking mighty tempting at this point.

Purple Breastmilk

And now for this week’s fun/gross (over)sharing post…

Anyone care to venture a guess as to why my breastmilk has taken on a purple hue?

I have not digitally altered this picture, except to up the
saturation a bit so that you can see the purple better.

Just in case you’re wondering, I know why my breastmilk is purple. But I won’t tell you why. At least not yet — where’s the fun in that?

So anyone?

(And no googling!)

The Geekinheels.com Web Empire

Webempires is a neat tool that aims to visualize the traffic of every website on the web. Basing its figures on the popular traffic aggregator Alexa, the site can be used to answer questions such as:

What if your website was a country?
What if all your visitors gathered in one place?

And more!

As of today, Alexa lists this blog as having 9,537 visitors per day. So if Geekinheels.com were a country, it would be larger than Montserrat!

And if all the daily visitors were to gather in one place at the same time, it would surpass the number of people who gathered to break the Guinness World Record for the most people simultaneously making snow angels in one place:

How does your site, or another favorite website compare?

Via Neatorama.

Baby Hadouken!

…or just some impeccable timing caught on camera.

Still, it made me LOL this sleepy Saturday morning.

Via haha.nu.

Having “The Talk” With Our Children

No, not that talk. The other one. The other, very important one.

Not sure what I mean? Take a look at this Public Service Announcement from Asylum:

Here are some sobering facts about the world today: Every day, millions of kids go to sleep having never been introduced to Chewbacca, and, worse, countless more think Greedo shot first.

We here at Asylum want to make sure you and your child have an open and healthy conversation about Jar Jar and the differences between a “good trilogy” and an “uh-oh trilogy.” So we’ve provided you with this, a PSA on talking to your child about Star Wars:

J and I swear that we will always reinforce the fact that Han shot first. And that Jar Jar kills puppies. And that Episodes 4-6 will always prevail, despite the embarrassment that is Episodes 1-3.

Now the great question remains: when is the best time to tell our kids about Luke’s father?

Via The Daily What.

Talkin’ ’bout My Generation

Since 1900, there have been six generations in the United States: G.I., Silent, Boomer, X, Millennial, and Z. While most people identify with one generation, I have the luck of having been born during a generational overlap — between X and Millennial.

Could you have guessed this based on what social trends influenced me while growing up?

USAToday believes so. In fact, they have created a fun interactive quiz which guesses your age based on your cultural experiences.

I have always been told that I act older than my age, and that my tastes and preferences belong to someone who is older. This must hold true to some regard, because USAToday guessed the year of my birth as 1973, not 1980!

How about you? Were your results accurate?

Via Flowing Data.

May the Force of Typography Be With You

Star Wars + typography = a very happy geek.

Via The Daily What.

Breast Fest 2010 Postponed

Unfortunately, J and I have decided to postpone Breast Fest (that’s my name for my 24-hour, breast-only, no-bottles-allowed marathon) a week or two.

We have always known that Claire has a “witching hour” — a period at night where a baby is extra fussy and cranky — but it has progressed to full-blown colic over the weekend. The past few nights have been hell. None of our usual tricks seem to work, and as soon as she seems to have calmed down, she will start screaming again once we relax.

Her fussiness has considerably gotten worse during the daytime too.

(And before you give any suggestions, please know that yes, we probably have tried it already. We have tried everything that friends have suggested, or read about in books and websites. And no, Claire does not have any medical problems. We can only deduce that it is colic, and that we will need to wait it out.)

They say that fussiness usually peaks at 6 weeks, and since Claire is currently 6 weeks old we are thinking that holding Breast Fest this week, when she is especially cranky and uncooperative, may not be the best idea.

I am praying that the colic will not last too long, and that it will not get any worse than this.

Wednesday. It’s On.

I am pretty sure that I do not need a lactation consultant.

Claire has a perfectly good latch. I do not have any supply issues. I am comfortable in different breastfeeding positions. I have read La Leche League’s The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding front to back, and am always visiting breastfeeding support forums, so I am certainly informed.

What I do have is an impatient and lazy suckler.

One out of every five times, she will take from my breast and drink for a good 10+ minutes straight.

It is only the other four out of five times that she will only suck for a minute or two, tire of it (because it’s more work than drinking from a bottle), then proceed to start screaming. And the girl must have inherited my stubbornness, because once the screaming starts she will refuse to eat from the breast for the rest of that session.

So unless you think I need to pay someone $180+ (that is the going rate for a home visit by a lactation consultant in my area) to sit there to be a cheerleader, no I do not need a lactation consultant.

What I need is a lot of time and patience — and perhaps a bit of stubbornness on my part too. What I need is some time alone with just the baby and myself, so that I do not feel pressured, or feel bad for anyone who might be subjected to the crying.

I am pretty certain that if I stay gung-ho and only offer my breasts for a full 24 hours, no bottles allowed, Claire will need to admit defeat and surrender.

I have asked J to ask his parents not to come over on Wednesday for this purpose.

J asked if I would like him to work from home, and I told him no.

Wednesday will be a day for just me and Claire. A day when I will be adamant about teaching my baby to associate my breasts to eating, to prefer my breasts over any bottle.

And a day filled with many tears, to be sure.

Please wish me luck.