Thank fuk for NUK (NUK Feeding Bottles)

Member Name: lulu2004

Product:	NUK Feeding Bottles
Date:	30/09/08 (714 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Same teat as hospitals use, teat is nipple shaped- great for breastfeeders

Disadvantages: its one of the more expensive ranges

if anyone feels annoyed by the title, Nuk is pronunced Nook, Im not actually swearing just playing with the words... so on with the review.

I'm not a big Avent bottles fan; I know its the brand typically chosen by mums, but they caused my son awful colic, and it was only by changing to the Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature range that we could give him any relief at all. I know lots of people use Avent- it's cheap and widely available, but for those of us who have suffered colicky babies; it does seem to be a bad choice. In my circle of mummy friends, although some had no problems with Avent (lucky them!) a lot of us had to change to various brands such as Tommee Tippee or Dr. Browns.

I breast-fed him to begin and missed out on formula feeding for a while, so I didn't realise that NUK was the type of teat used by hospitals to feed newborns and so I did my research and settled on Tommee Tippee which worked just fine for us. It wasn't until I was given a gift of 2 NUK dummies and got to reading the packaging and my son enjoyed the shape of them that I wanted to find out more about the NUK range.
By this stage it was too late to change bottles, but I have switched to NUK for everything since. Training bottles, cups and now, I am using the complete NUK range for my infant daughter and could not sing its praises highly enough.

Nuk is orthodonically shaped, which was one of the features I was pleasantly surprised with. The teat is bulbous at the end and promotes healthy jaw development. It has been endorsed by dentists and I must say my little boy has lovely teeth- something I was concerned about as I have had crooked teeth all my life. It will be interesting to see if my son's jaw development has been promoted when he gets to his teens... however he is only 2 at the moment!


NUK FEEDING BOTTLES FEATURES:

Nuk do a wide-neck feeding bottle and a narrow neck. Grace has not gotten on particularly well with the wide neck as she was very small and the milk flow was too quick for her, but is absolutely fine with the narrow neck version. You can chose from silicon or latex teats and I have chosen Silicone as it just looks cleaner. Latex is better for children with teeth as it can withstand more biting and chewing if needs be.

You can change the teats- the sizes available are:

0-6 Months Slow feed hole
0-6 Months Medium Feed hole
0-6 Months Large Feed Hole (good for when formula is made thicker with the likes of gaviscon)

6-18 Months Slow Feed Hole
6-18 Months Medium Feed Hole
6-18 Months Large Feed Hole

All are available in Silicone and Latex, and Wide Neck or Narrow neck. You really can create the bottle to suit your baby.

There is a range of specialist teats available for babies with cleft palates or lips and a range for preemie babies. They are a specialist brand who knows their stuff about feeding babies. It's not all about marketing- they don't advertise too much although I have increasingly seen small adverts in the magazines. NUK has been a well kept secret for many years. It's about time more mums knew how good they are!

Another feature is that you will find the hole on the teat is located on the top. This makes milk flow more like a natural nipple, so the teats are sucked in the same way that a baby would latch to the breast; in my experience my daughter did not need to 'relearn' how to suck- it was still the same technique she had been using on the breast.

THEIR BREAST-FEEDING SYSTEM

I have just started to wean my daughter from breast to bottle and we are currently combining feeding breast-milk with Aptamil formula. Up until now I have been using a NUK electric breast-pump to express milk for her which fits the NUK narrow neck bottles. I simply screw one into the bottom of the pump, then when I have expressed enough milk I use a sealing cap on the bottle and store it safely in the fridge. It's very convenient that the pump holds narrow necked bottles as I can just fill a bottle then pop a teat on the top when necessary. It's so easy even my husband can manage!

BOTTLE DESIGNS

Nuk don't keep things simple; they like to cover their bottles with patterns. I remember thinking that I would prefer plain bottles the first time I saw the NUK range, but I have grown to love the little patterned bottles. My eldest child loves to look at the baby's bottles too. Pointing out hedgehogs and butterflies to me, so I suppose they can be seen as educational in a roundabout way. They have different ideas in the rest of Europe, where mums here lean more towards plain, clean design, the rest of Europe embrace colour and pattern and plastic on baby goods. I've grown to like it too.

NUK do a glass bottle but Ive never seen one in real life to know anything about it.

MY EXPERIENCE

My daughter is particularly good at winding. Having had one child who was really troubled with trapped wind this is an absolute blessing. I'm obviously not sure if NUK is responsible for this as we have not needed to switch bottles at all this time around. I found she readily took the teat without any sign of nipple confusion when we were starting to introduce bottles to her.

No leaks, no spills...

So its all good here! Two thumbs up from me.
Lulu2004 ©

Summary: Different.. but every bit as good as the well known brands