As formula isn't sterile, it’s recommended that you make it as your baby needs it, using water that's at least 70ºC, and to use it within two hours.

Our support line offers practical and emotional support in many areas of pregnancy, birth and early parenthood: 0300 330 0700. Slow flow is generally preferable for newborns, while you’re both learning how to feed. If the flow rate is too fast it makes paced feeding more difficult. In which case babies would have very little control over how they feed: milk would flow into their mouth faster than they can swallow it. This might make your baby cough or splutter, or struggle to keep up with the flow of milk so it dribbles to the side of their mouth. This could also mean they feel upset, get indigestion and bring up lots of milk. All Closer to Nature bottle teats feature an anti-colic valve to prevent the symptoms of colic by ensuring your little one ingests more milk and less air. Portable baby bottle warmers These allow you to warm up a bottle easily when you're out and about, although the milk will generally take longer to warm up than in other types of warmers.

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The lids to these are often screw-on, so are easy to remove, but don’t come off when the cup is thrown on the floor. Some advantages of using these bottles are that they can be easy to fill and clean. On the other hand, they can take more space in a steriliser so you probably won’t be able to clean as many bottles at once (Which? 2019). Ready-to-feed bottles Bottles come in two sizes, small ones which hold 150mls (5 fl oz) and large ones which hold 250ml (9 fl oz). For the first few weeks, newborns feed little and often because their stomachs are so small (Unicef, 2019). The smaller bottles are more suitable for this period. Babies who feed from larger bottles consume more milk, which may lead to overfeeding (Wood et al, 2016).

Cons: More fiddly than other methods, solution needs to be changed every 24 hours, relatively slow sterilising process, you have to use separate sterilising tablets. UV sterilisers Anti-colic bottles are designed to reduce the amount of air a baby takes in while feeding, which is thought to be a possible cause of colic (uncontrollable crying in a healthy baby as a result of wind). This is done through air vents, tubes or collapsible bags for the milk inside the bottle.If you think you'll be using the bottle warmer to heat jars of food as well as milk, choose one that has an adaptor for holding jars at an easily reachable height – otherwise you can end up having to reach down into the hot warmer for your jar. Some warmers have the facility to heat food in a bowl, too. Other types of bottle warmers