Philips Avent Natural Baby Bottles Review

Philips Avent Natural Baby Bottles Review

When I was pregnant with my first baby in 2013, I was preparing for life with a baby and researching and buying the products that I would need. I always knew that I would breastfeed her (which I did for a year) but I also knew that I would want to pump my breast milk and be able to give her a bottle of expressed milk every now and then if I wanted to have a nap or a glass of wine one night.

That’s when I came across the Philips AVENT Comfort Manual Breast Pump that had good reviews, looked very ergonomic and comfortable and was affordable too. Its RRP was £36 at the time but I bought it for just £18 from Amazon. A baby I’d looked after when I was working as a nanny really loved the Philips AVENT bottles and happily drank his mother’s breast milk (that she’d pumped with the Philips AVENT breast pump) from them when I was looking after him and was fed from straight from the breast at all other times. They were combining breast and bottle feeding successfully using this brand and that helped me make the decision to go for Philips AVENT too.

The pump came with a 120ml bottle to collect the milk in and a teat so that you could use it to feed your baby. I decided to get a few extra of the same bottle so that I would have enough to store a few servings of milk in the fridge. Those were all the bottles we needed for quite some time and I just changed to faster flow teats as my daughter got bigger.

Philips AVENT became one of our favourite baby brands very quickly — I loved their breast pump, my daughter loved their bottles and soothers and we ended up buying their microwave steriliser too, which we are still using now, nearly two years later.

Philips AVENT Natural Baby Bottles have been designed to be easy to combine with breastfeeding which was exactly what I was looking for. They bottles have a natural, rounded shape to be similar to the breast. The wide breast-shaped teat features an innovative petal design for comfort and a natural, breast like latch. The teat is strong and thick but also soft and very flexible and will not collapse, making sure your baby is content throughout the feed.

There’s an advanced anti-colic system with an innovative twin valve that reduces the risk of colic by venting air into the bottle and not into your baby’s stomach.

The bottles themselves are also very ergonomic and comfortable to hold — both for babies and adults. The rounded shape is really cute too! The bottles are symmetrical and can be held in any direction without the flow being affected. The bottles have measurement lines on two sides — one side in millimetres and the other in fluid ounces. I like this as I use the metric system but many people use ounces when talking about baby milk.

The sturdy BPA-free bottles are easy to clean and fill thanks to their wide necks and quick to assemble since they only have a few parts — bottle, teat and teat ring.

The bottles are available in three different sizes — 125 ml, 260 ml and 330 ml. They can be bought singularly or in multi-packs.

“Since 1984, Philips Avent has been designing and manufacturing products that are inspired by nature and have been developed through extensive research and clinical trials.”

My daughter is nearly 2 years old but still likes to drink her morning milk and an evening milky smoothie from a bottle. We use the 260 ml bottles for these occasions. They come with 1 month+ teats but I’ve bought some fast flow teats to go with them as that’s what my daughter needs at this stage. The smaller 125 ml bottles come with newborn teats.

Though it had been quite some time since my daughter used the small bottles that I’d bought before she was born, she accepted these new bottles straight away and loves drinking from them. She doesn’t accept all bottle brands so this is important. The larger size is perfect for her needs now as she prefers a bigger serving of milk.

When we introduced her to expressed breast milk from a Philips AVENT Natural bottle when she was a newborn (a couple of weeks old), we didn’t have any problems getting her to take the bottle either. I’d heard about people struggling to get their babies to accept a bottle after breastfeeding but I think we made the right choice when it came to which bottles to go for and also the right time for us as breastfeeding was established and we wanted to make sure from early on that we could give her expressed breast milk when we needed to.

We have a few new 125 ml bottles that we are saving for our second baby who will be born in May 2016. I plan to use the same approach and introduce expressed milk occasionally from an early age as that worked so well with our daughter.

Read more on the Philips AVENT website and buy from all good shops that sell baby equipment. I find that Amazon.co.uk is usually the cheapest and since prices fluctuate a lot there, you can grab bargains when the prices are low.

There are some great bundle buys available too, like this Philips AVENT Natural Newborn Starter Set where you get two 125 ml bottles, two 260 ml bottles, a bottle brush and and a soother (these are brilliant!) for just £14.00. It’s an absolute bargain.

I was sent some new Philips AVENT Natural Baby Bottles to go with this post. All other Philips AVENT product mentioned have been purchased by myself. Prices are correct at the time of writing.