The new Philips avent nipples are terrible

M

melody5697

New member
I ordered the new size 1 nipples and absolutely nothing comes out. I struggled for 2 days with my baby who went from drinking 4oz z feed to struggling flow an hour to drink 2oz. I tried the nipples myself and it was very hard to suck anything out. Is anyone else having the same issue? My LO is 3.5 months old and doesn't like Dr browns either.

Edit 1:
So far I've tried the new size 1, size 3. Both don't work.
Also tried Dr browns wide neck size 2 nipples - baby hates it because it's too fast. Will keep this post updated as we experiment.
 
@melody5697 Philips did a really poor job sharing the change in flow rates. After some searching, I found that Philips has published a new-to-old equivalents table on their website here Philips Natural Response equivalents.

My LO had the opposite problem. I had been using the new flow #1s and then switched up to #2. I had a mix of old and new nipples in the house and could not understand why, for some feedings, he would gulp and freak out. It turns out the old #2 flow nipples are closer to the new #4 flow rate, which was way too fast for my 3mo old.

For you, it looks like you might want to try the new #3 nipples, which should be the equivalent of the old #1. I hope this helps.
 
@wiacaj Thank you so much for sharing that link! My 9-month-old has been on the old #2s since 5-6 months and I’ve been putting off getting new ones cause I heard the new nipples are terrible!
 
@melody5697 Yeah we find the new "Natural Response" 4 is only a little faster than our old "Natural" 1's. We have some Old/Natural 3's and 4's and there is no comparison (old N3's are perfect for our needs, whereas old N4's are borderline too fast, but the new NR4 is good for our leisurely night feeds).

Kinda offput by the whole process. We just wanted to upgrade from old 1's and found ourselves in a vacuum of useful information and confusing branding ("Natural Response" vs "Natural", but the numbering seems wildly different? Thanks...)

Here's how I see them (we don't have tons of the the last three here but those are our primary ones these days - don't want to burn more cash trying to guess at new numbers just to find them too fast or slow):
  • Old 1's (Slow)
  • New 4's (Leisurely but usable)
  • Old 3's (Good pace)
  • Old 4's (A bit fast)
 
@melody5697 Glad I’m not the only one with this experience. Got the natural response 4 from target at about 4 months and baby couldn’t get anything out. I contacted Philips and they gave me a coupon, which I spent on the old style 4 directly from their website. They may still have the old version in some sizes…? Otherwise my baby also likes comotomo, but obviously that requires a different bottle. Supposedly MAM and Lanisnoh nipples also fit the Avent bottles so you could try those? https://www.theglassbabybottle.com/info-bottlenipple/

Also I used a sterile needle to widen the hole in an old 2 and it flows more like a new 4 now.
 
@melody5697 Ugh I know. My baby is still using the old 2s when she should really be on a 3 right now cause she won't take the new nipples. She also is hit and miss with other brands. Why would they do that with no warning??
 
@melody5697 So I know this is an older post, but commenting in case anyone sees this from a search or something. My baby was using the level 4 of the old style. I bought the transition sippy cup with a level 5 in the new style. With the level 5, it takes him forever to finish, and he often doesn’t finish because it’s much slower than the old level 4. I contacted Philips Avent through Facebook and complained. They told me to check for a clog (🙄) and I said there were no clogs and the air vent was free. They will be sending me a 2 pack of the old level 4 nipples as a courtesy. My baby is almost 8 months so I’m hoping he’ll be weaned from bottles by the time the new nipples expire (instructions say to discard after 3 months). However, this isn’t a solution for a lot of people. I encourage everyone to complain to Philips either on Facebook or Twitter. They may not change their practice, but I still think letting them know that discontinuing the old style nipples was a bad business practice may make them think twice before doing that again in the future.
 
@savedthroughgrace I will be complaining as well. Just found this post in a search and am so frustrated they changed the nipples! We've had no trouble finding the old style allll the way to size 3 and we just wanted to move up to a size 4 and have wasted so much money in the process. First I sent my husband and he bought the size 4 of the natural response as he didn't realize there was new ones (and I didn't realize the sizes would be vastly different.) We bought enough for 6 bottles, so that was 30 bucks down the drain. Then I went and bought the size 5 nipples thinking oh well, that'll be the new size and surprise! The size 5 still isnt any bigger than the size 3 of the old size. Now I'm on the hunt for size 4s of the old style because I have a 5 month old that's not interested in trying new bottles and has been eating significantly less the last couple of days. I only bought the Philips bottles this year as well, so if they're gonna change the bottles maybe don't sell the ones that have the old style nipple in the first place. I'm so salty about it and we have wasted SO much time feeding these last few days
 
@melody5697 They get better at size 2, if you can find the old style for size 1 they buy em. I payed way too much for the old style on Amazon because I ran into the same issue with the new style size 1. Your not alone, good luck
 
@melody5697 I think it's a manufacturing error. There is an air hole on the side of the nipple, near the collar of the bottle. Make sure its open. I had to sort of wiggle mine around on about half of the new nipples we purchased to get it to open up.
 
@melody5697 omg could you resend, I just declined it because I thought you were a rando asking me about an inappropriate "air hole" hahahah. Sorry, total pregnancy brain.
 
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