There are so many baby bottles on the market today and most parents find themselves wondering which one to pick for their child. Unfortunately the only answer is “which ever one works for your baby”. Therefore, often times parents purchase one of each or try the one that was recommended most. Some times parents go back and forth given their child’s preference changes over time. A frustrating task that leads to having so many unused bottles.
In this article we will compare two popular baby bottles the Avent and Dr Brown’s Natural Flow (Dr Brown’s) based on first-hand experiences. Both brands are compared by it’s cleaning process, how they each handle air bubbles, and which one is easier to use. Dr Brown’s bottles are made by and can be found at www.handi-craft.com and the Avent can be found at their website www.aventamerica.com.
Cleaning
Just by looking at the two bottles you can tell that there will be a difference in the cleaning process. Both the Avent and Dr Brown’s are dishwasher safe, however most of the time you find yourself hand washing them yourself. If you rate each baby bottle by its cleaning process the Avent bottle will win every time and without hesitation.
Lets start with the Avent, since it is the more simple product of the two. The Avent bottle has three pieces to it. The nipple, bottle, and the screw cap. Each of them are easy to clean and requires little attention to detail. The Dr Brown’s bottles are unfortunately the hardest of all the bottles that are out there. There are 5 peices in total. The two inner pieces the “vent inserts and the “vent reservoirs” are the key components for making the Dr. Brown’s bottles so different from the rest. Each of these pieces require soaking and attention to the hard to reach areas. Fortunately, the Dr. Brown’s bottles comes with cleaning brushes that are small enough to reach these areas, but in order to really get the crud off, you need to first soak them.
In addition to the two critical inner parts, the Dr. Brown’s bottles has three more parts. The bottle, nipple and screw cap are all simple to clean and comparable to the Avent bottles. So unless you feel like spending an extra 5 minutes a bottle the Avent bottles are your pick when only considering the cleaning process. You might ask, why are so many people using Dr. Brown’s and how are they still in business? The answer is that it does exactly what it says.
Handling Air If you have a baby start to drink from an Avent bottle, you’ll soon hear a hissing sound. Then soon after you’ll see little bubbles start to develop near the nipple and into the fluid. This air is then slowly ingested and could create more gas for your baby. Unfortunately, infants digestive system is still immature and creates a lot of pain for the baby. Any bit of air that is ingested only irritates what is already a painful experience.
This is where the Dr. Brown’s bottles separate themselves from the rest. The system, admittedly cumbersome, allows the air to go back into the bottom of the bottle where there is no fluid. So you wont hear any hissing or see any bubbles develop. At the end of the day it is all about what works for your child. The only way to see the difference it to experience it yourself.
Ease of use As you can imagine, the Avent bottle would win this section too based on parts alone. The Avent bottle has only three parts and works similar to most bottles out there. It is easy to put together and easy to store. However putting together a Dr. Brown’s bottle takes a bit of getting use to. When traveling, the Dr. Brown’s bottles require a bit of juggling. It also takes up a lot of space on your counter top if left out to air dry. Each part in the Dr Brown’s bottles is required in order for the bottle to be leak proof. You also have to make sure that it is closed tightly, otherwise the liquid will leak out through the ring around the nipple.
So which one do we use? Dr. Brown’s. Why you might ask…..because our daughter tried it all and it was the one that helped her gas, colic and spit up the most! You could say that we wish she didn’t prefer them, because we certainly hate using them. What we learned very quickly after giving birth is that it isn’t about us anymore and it only takes one child and picking her bottle to learn this.
