Collaboration With Mumsnet
By Jess From Life As We Know It
If you’re new to my blog I’m Jess. I have two children – a little girl who just turned two and a little boy who is 7 months. Bottles are a pretty important part of our life and choosing the right one to suit your baby can often be difficult, as well as choosing which way to feed your baby too. Remember all opinions in this post are my own and my own outlook on parenting – always remember fed is best no matter what.
Combination Feeding
We have been working with MAM testing out their Easy Start Anti Colic Bottles. Just to be fully open and honest, the bottles and dummies in the images on this blog have been sent to us as part of the campaign (but we were already huge lovers of the MAM brand!).
Combination feeding was always going to be an option for me as I wanted my partner to be as involved as he could be with both babies. After having my first, I decided breastfeeding wasn’t for me. I don’t know why it just didn’t click and we decided as a family that fed was most definitely best and there was no need for upset, guilt, or worry – just to move forward as a happy mum and baby! And that we did with the help of MAM! Both times both of my babies took to the bottles straight away so we were super lucky to not have any issues. Research with MAM from 2009-2017 on 1508 babies showed that 94% of the babies accepted their skin soft teat and medical research throughout 2011 showed that it reduces colic in 80% of babies too which is fab!
Newborn Feeds
When feeding your newborn and using these bottles they are as close to the familiar feeling of being breastfed as possible which also makes it super easy to switch between breast and bottle. I have a friend with seven children (six of which were breastfed) and all of them took the MAM bottles straight away too. Another fabulous feature that I love is that the bottles have a soft lip rest and small mouthpiece perfect for those tiny newborn days.
My two have brilliant routines and from 6pm we go in the bath, have a play then get pajamas on. We then have their milk ready and waiting in the MAM bottles. Penny still has hers (now just one a night) and I’m totally okay with that – she’s still drinking milk which is amazing for her growth! Arlo also absolutely loves his bedtime bottle. Then off to bed they go, with their MAM dummies too… for 12 hours sleep, wahoo!
Combination feeding is brilliant for all sorts of reasons. Allowing your partner and other family members to be involved in feeding baby, sometimes giving you just ten minutes to drink that hot cuppa (that’s a thing of the past for me now with two little ones haha!). The bottles can have formula or breastmilk in and are super easy to clean afterwards (self-sterilising feature explained below)
Self sterilising
…Yes you heard me right, these bottles self sterilise! How brilliant!
As a family, we travel quite often for weekend getaways over to our family’s holiday home in Whitby so being able to take these bottles with us and not have to pack a steriliser too is such a lifesaver as it allows more room in the car for extra toys!
Combination feeding can often make your breastfeeding journey last longer and can either be breastfed and expressed milk in a bottle or breastfed and formula in a bottle. Any of those options are completely fine and no matter what, you are giving your baby the best start in life! It can also give you, and baby, a more relaxed routine. Don’t be scared to have that little break and let someone else feed baby!
If you decide to combination feed for whatever reason is personal to you, I can most definitely recommend these bottles to do so. I love the new designs – the turtle is my fave!
Thank you for reading
Jess
x
