It's hard to know exactly what sort of feeding products you'll need before the baby is born. There's no way of knowing in advance whether breast-feeding will work out for you or not. We've put together a two-tiered guide on feeding products you'll need for the first days back from hospital and longer-term.
First Days Feeding
Whether you end up breastfeeding or not, you'll need to allow for the fact that your breasts will produce milk. So stock up on breastpads to stop the milk leaking through to your clothes. You'll probably also need a maternity bra to allow your baby easy access to feeding, or for you to pump away milk.
Pump Action
If you decide to breastfeed, once you've got the hang of it, you'll probably want to work out a system for expressing milk so that you can take a break from your baby, or to allow your partner to feed the baby. You can buy a hand-operated pump, but most mums prefer an electric pump (just be prepared to feel like something from Old MacDonald's Farm!).
A Lot Of Bottle If you do decide to formula feed, you'll need to buy in enough bottles to ensure there's always a clean one to hand. You'll probably find yourself experimenting with brands to see which one suits your baby best.
Clean Machine Whether you're formula feeding, or using expressed milk you'll need to wash and sterilise the bottles until your baby is around a year old. You'll also need to sterilise items such as dummies or breast shields.
Buy a special cleaning brush to get all the milk out of the teat - you'll get good use out of it. To sterilise, you can do this the old-fashioned way by boiling, using sterilising fluid or use a steam steriliser which is less work, but more expensive to buy.
