Feeding Markus

Sandra and I decided that we were going to use glass bottles instead of plastic ones due to the new information about BPA. If you're not aware, BPA is basically a chemical used in plastics (think of the clear, hard plastics) that is harmful to infants and can be released when the plastic is heated.

Wiki article here

Anyway, we are using Dr. Brown's bottles and we're happy with them. They have this anti-gas system that has a bunch of little parts inside (you can see the funnel in the picture), which can be annoying, but since we started with these bottles, we're used to them and don't find them annoying at all. Markus likes them and doesn't have any problems with gas. He burps after he eats and that's it.

We originally were using a sterilizer from a company called The First Years, but it broke after about 3 months. Looking at the reviews on Amazon.com, this is not uncommon. It's a pretty simple design. It boils some water on a hot plate on the bottom and the steam sterilizes the parts above it. It worked well in the beginning, however, despite it's size, it couldn't fit all of the bottles AND parts, so we had to use it twice each time. This may have led to the failure. It also took about 10 minutes for each cycle. It really shouldn't be too hard to make a better product.

We then picked up Dr. Brown's microwave sterilizer, which fits 4 bottles and parts and works in 6 minutes. It's great, although it takes a few times before you learn how to put all the pieces in the bowl. It's pretty complicated. I think I mastered it after 3-4 uses. Again, I'm surprised nobody could come up with a better solution. It works fine and since it's just a bowl with some water on the bottom, it shouldn't break.

The whole sterilzer thing is debatable anyway. You don't have to sterlize your bottles all the time, but it satisfies parent paranoia.

Markus has been eating Similac Advance Earlyshield formula. It's the one that we got from the hospital and he has had no problems. In fact, he LOVES eating. lol. It smells like crap and according to Sandra it tastes like it smells. Since Markus hasn't eaten anything other than this in his life so far, he's happy! We buy the powder form, make a pitcher, fill up his bottles and put them in the fridge. We then warm them up when Markus is hungry (~2-3 hours) using The First Years bottle warmer, which is basically a small version of the sterilizer (plate heats up water to heat up bottle). It's still working and we haven't had any problems so far.

Anyway, that's takes care of his bottle and food system. Oh, we use Dr. Brown's formula pitcher to mix the formula (it's supposed to reduce gas). I think that's it. Unless you include that we use Palmolive to wash his bottles.

Here is a video of Markus grabbing on to a toy and holding on to it. A big milestone that made us happy this past weekend!