B is for ?

Burp.

Burping Hannah has been a major occupation since we introduced the bottle. (Whenever she is breastfed, she requires little or no burping at all.) I started off with Avent bottles, believing that these are the better ones (they claimed that their bottles can reduce colic as compared to others). However, it was a challenge to get Hannah to accept Avent’s teats. I had to coax her very often to suck from the teat – how tiring! Besides, she took in a lot of air sucking from the bottle. Hence, I spent most of the time coaxing and burping her during each feed. How I dreaded every feeding session! There had been incidents where I got so tired of burping her that I did not break the feed into intervals for burping. i.e. she drank the whole bottle in one sitting. The result? The air bubbles accumulated in her tummy forced the milk out after she was done! Ya, she merlion-ed. Sigh. My fault la.

Out of desperation, I did some research on the Internet for reviews of other brands of bottles. I read on several blogs and forums that Bfree bottles are effective in reducing wind in tummy due to their special design in preventing negative pressure within the bottle when the baby sucks. That, my friend, is key to solving my burping nightmare. Another important feature is their teat: it is softer as compared to Avent’s. Their bottles are also BPA-free (some harmful chemical present in normal bottles that can leech into milk over a period of time). The latter is less crucial to me as a few other brands also carry BPA-free alternatives.

It just so happened that Spring Maternity had a promotion for 1-for-1 exchange of Bfree bottle; you give them your old bottle in exchange for a brand new Bfree bottle and top up another $8.90 (I think it costs around $18.90 per bottle). I had some old Avent bottles given by Sharon (my sister in-law) and used them to exchange for 2 Bfree bottles. Hee hee :P

The verdict? Well, Hannah requires much less cajoling to take to the bottle. She drinks with less difficulty and finishes her milk within a shorter period. Her tummy takes in less air too and the burping has been less tedious. :) There’s a downside though. The Bfree bottles have many parts (7 parts!) to clean and assemble. Quite a tedium to wash and sterilise them after each feed.

Lately, Hannah seemed to know when a burp is coming up. She would start to straighten up her back and look expectant. :) Not bad eh. It is also a signal for me that that lovely burping noise is coming up after all the hard work of patting her back. Then she would look rather contented afterward and wide-eyed for more milk!