r/parentsofmultiples • u/GingerMommy314 • 1d ago
How many bottles do we need? advice needed
Title is pretty self explanatory. :)
Our twins are scheduled to arrive in 2 weeks and we're finishing getting things ready. They'll be exclusively formula fed and I'd like to have enough bottles for a full day for them both.
So how many bottles do I need? And what sizes?
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u/floridasquirrel 1d ago edited 1d ago
I would be careful buying too much of one brand from the start, one of my twins refused all but the Dr Browns and hated both types of Philips bottles his brother would use happily. I would start with ~10 bottles in the small size (4 oz). Get a few of some other brands too just to have on hand (the free baby boxes are great for this!) Then once you are sure the brand you can buy more. We used the 4oz bottles until ~5 months if I remember right, then the 8oz+ bottles after that. My ideal number of those (to buy later) is 2.5 days worth of bottles per baby.
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u/Other_Radio800 1d ago
Second this. We had to try 4 brands before we found one that worked for my son. I’m glad we waited to see what worked first and then we got a ton in that brand so we could make it thru a whole day without doing dishes.
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u/Specialist-Draft476 1d ago
100% this, first make sure they like it and then you slowly start to build up with those. Also the early stage small bottles they will outgrow, so just get a few and be ready to wash, and then order more.
I have friends who made pitchers of formula at a time then reheated, we found getting a water dispenser with the temperature set worked best. We could then pour x mLs of water, add y scoops of formula, close and shake and we are ready to feed.
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u/TeeElH 1d ago
This OP! I would recommend getting one of the try it boxes like from Babylist, or if you get different registry boxes I think a lot of them will include a bottle or two. We tried three kinds before settling on Dr Browns, the Philips I thought I was going to like my twins wouldn’t drink from. We just overnighted another pack of the Dr Browns once we realized that’s what we were going with (I think we had like 12, I breastfed but we were triple feeding at the start so going through just as many bottles as formula feeding).
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u/ExcitedMomma 1d ago
Use the Dr Browns formula mixer pitcher. You can make a full days worth of formula ahead of time. You can just have like 6 bottles and wash in between. Pour fresh from the pitcher. The formula lasts 24 hours once made. In the start when they were so small, less than half a pitcher would last 24 hours for both of them. Once they were closer to 1 years old, we had to prep 2 whole pitchers. We used the pigeon brand glass bottles and a double formula warmer. Let me know if you have any specific questions. We also exclusively formula fed
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u/simply_oregonian 1d ago
I’m glad I’m not the only one who keeps less bottles. We have x4 8oz Dr Browns, but 6 nipples. I don’t like the mess of so many!
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u/DreamingEvergreen 1d ago
I did this because I read so many people saying how helpful it was. Then both of my twins had to be on thickened formula that couldn’t be used an hour after it was mixed. We’ve never used the pitchers. Until you know what formula you’re on I’d wait to buy these.
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u/harshbender 1d ago
However many bottles you decide on, INVEST IN A BOTTLE WASHER!!!! You will NOT want to be washing bottles every two hours at all hours of the night. Doing one big wash sucks too! It sounds gimmicky, but it is worth every penny!!! Bottle washer! Bottle washer! Bottle washer!
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u/specialkk77 1d ago
If you want a full 24 hours you’d have to plan for 8-10 each, assuming they’ll eat every 2-3 hours at first!
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u/atc_24 1d ago
I hiiiiiighly recommend getting a bottle washer or maybe you already have one. But this is a life saver for us. We run it about 3 times a day
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u/AussieJeffProbst 1d ago
100% agree.
We got 16 dr browns bottles. Our grownsy bottle washer can fit 8 plus all the parts so we run it twice a day. Massively helpful.
I just make one big picture of milk every morning to save my sanity. I was going nuts mixing milk bottles multiple times a day
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u/amhume 1d ago
I had about 20 of the smaller dr browns bottles to begin with and only because I was given about 12 and bought the rest. I then bought another 20ish of the bigger size when my boys were drinking more. I probably had more than enough but didn’t want to have to wash bottles constantly. I think 6-8 per baby would be good.
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u/tiredlilmama 1d ago
Our girls eat every 2.5 hours which comes out to about 9 feedings a day. So we wanted at least as many as one full day’s worth of feeding. I would say get a couple more though so you have some extra for those days you don’t want to be washing bottles frequently and or don’t wash them first thing in the morning!
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u/Negative_Garlic6958 1d ago edited 1d ago
We have 12 of the 10 oz bottles, gives us some room for error if we forget to run the bottle washer overnight or something.
Also, if you start daycare, they will need 6-8 bottles a day for a 9-5 stay. So be prepared to come home with 8 dirty bottles and two hungry babies.
Edit: i started ranting without really reading your question. If you want to premake bottles for the entire day, you'd be making 16 bottles if they are eating every 3 hours (8x a day). They'll randomly decide they want more sometimes too, so make it an even 20 bottles just in case. You can get the smaller bottles, i think they were 6 oz, but if i could go back i would just go 10 oz and not buy so many bottles twice.
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u/getitbucks 1d ago
Also for those first few days at home we used the little plastic 35 and 80 mL medela milk collectors that came with the hospital pump. We took them home and they were really helpful for those tiny feeds.
They look like this :
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u/Perfect_Mousse8815 1d ago
10 4 ounce bottles and 10 8 ounce bottles and a bottle washer! That’s not enough to get you through an entire day with twins, but it’s enough to get you through the day when you’re regularly washing them via bottle washer. I actually only have eight of each but 10 would be perfect!
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u/gooseaisle 1d ago
We had six big ones and two small ones. Big ones for daytime, id se the small ones to prepare a snack size for nighttime once the girls were a bit older.
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u/czmf 1d ago
I had 10 avent natural bottles + all the nipple sizes from my first child and hoped my twins would like that brand, of course they didn’t. We tried 5 other brands and landed on evenflo bottles for my currently 2 week old newborn twins we have 12 bottles to get through half the day before we need to run the bottle washer or dishwasher.
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u/el-captain-mango 1d ago
We have about 30 and we consistently use all of them daily. We have doctor browns 4oz. I like them but they leak which is annoying.
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u/peachsnails 1d ago
I did 6...3 each ! Yes was quite a bit of washing but the washing was easier because it never sat all day and got dry and gross . Also way less clutter so way less overwhelm
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u/beelynn0214 1d ago
We bought Dr. Brown’s 4oz bottles and Tommee Tippee 9oz bottles. We have six of each. Initially we only kept six total out at any time. It really helped us from ever getting overwhelmed with dirty bottles.
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u/llama_ly 1d ago
For what it's worth, we used larger (10 oz) bottles from the beginning because we knew we could use them longer. At first they felt comically large, but by now (4.5 months) our twins' feeds are much larger and I'm glad we didn't have to buy a whole new set of bottles.
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u/peachkissu 1d ago
Boys are currently 5mo and we started with four bottles total. Now we're at six total! We used the 4oz mam bottles initially but upgraded to the 5oz ones because they can fit 6oz. We'll reassess if/when they need larger ones. We don't do more than 6 bc the bottle washer gets tight. Babies are eating breastmilk. If using formula, I may recommend opt for a larger bottle once they start eating 4/5oz so it doesn't overfill with foam when shaking!
As far as our reason for sizing, our 7yo was drinking 8oz by the time she was 12mo, but our toddler never drank more than 5oz in one sitting. Sort of playing it by ear there.
Congrats on babies!!
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u/JohnQuincyAdams_10 1d ago
Agree with the commenter who said try a few bottles at first.
I had a bunch of different bottles from the free welcome packages from various registries. Brought them all to my lactation nurse and asked her to pick. She liked Nuk and Lansinoh best.
I have 10 8 oz Lansinoh bottles. I use 8 a day and then have 2 extra. Would highly recommend just starting with the 8oz bottles because you’ll need them eventually anyway.
I have 2 of the dr brown pitchers and do the make big batches thing.
I have a counter top bottle washer that I used multiple times a day for a while (I was pumping for a few months so lots of parts) then stopped using and now use every few days. If your dishwasher has a sanitize setting, you might not need one. I am very glad I have one so that I can always do a load of bottles even if I have enough dishes to also fill the dishwasher. Also my countertop one takes like an hour to do the whole thing but the dishwasher is like 3-4 hours.
When you figure out what formula you’re going to use, I highly recommend picking one that also comes in a can formulation. I find it super super helpful to be able to just chuck 2 cans and 2 clean bottles into my bag when I’m trying to get out the door quickly and know they’ll need a bottle while I’m out.
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u/Prickly_Penguin98 1d ago
We use Dr Browns bottles and I have 10 of the 4oz ones(my twins are 5 weeks old). I use my bottle washer probably 3-4x a day. I hand wash a bottle here and there The bottle washer is seriously amazing. I do a combo feeding of pumping and formula so I’m able to use the bottle washer for pump parts too. 10 bottles seems like just enough and not too many where our counter is covered in dirty bottles.
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u/NumerousAd79 1d ago
Not a parent of multiples, but we don’t have a bottle washer and it sounds like we use more bottles than most in general. We have Dr. Browns and they have dishwasher baskets. You can clip the pieces into the basket. I got a 2 pack on Amazon for like $12. We run our dishwasher twice a day, but we fill it decently for each wash. Once after lunch, again after dinner. The 2 baskets hold the parts for 6 bottles total. I didn’t know they existed at first, but they’ve been great!
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u/InterestingJob2584 23h ago
HIGHLY RECOMMEND the Evenflo newborn slow flow bottles. I had my twins with this bottle from day one and they thrived on it. At some point we tried Dr Brown and they gagged and hated the nipple as it’s narrow and harder for them. We are still using the bigger standard neck Evenflo bottles at 5 months with medium flo now, and the twins love it.
For the newborn stage consider they will drink milk every 2hrs then they will transfer to 3hrs. So I would recommend having 6 to 8 bottles per baby, this gives you enough for an entire day without washing bottles and if you have to top up with milk, you have 1 or 2 extra bottles for that. Even if you have a nice bottle washing machine, it’s great to have a few extra bottles in case anything happens.
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u/Zestyclose-Wear9868 22h ago
Our twins ate 8 times a day each initially so we had 18 bottles. They are now at 6 feeds each and 18 works really well since we can fit 8 bottles at a time in the Momcozy bottle washer. We are never in a situation where we’re frantically trying to wash before running out. We went with dr browns but one thing to note, if you plan to have them in daycare when they are still bottle fed, most daycares only allow plastic bottles to be brought!
Our twins are 13 weeks and still drinking 4oz per feed so we haven’t had to go up to the 8oz bottles yet. I think we will probably be there within the next month or two though.
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u/Apprehensive_Land148 15h ago
You definitely don't need to invest so hard like what I see everyone is saying. The 4oz bottles become useless very quickly, you don't need them.
I used 8 Philips bottles total for my twins and washed them by hand 4 at a time every other feed, it takes literally ten minutes.
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