Medela Special Needs Feeder Teat

A must have for our baby with cleft lip and palate. We tear at the top of this bottle a little with tiny scissor blades to open up the slit so that we don't have to squeeze the bottle and the baby can feed at his own pace. Do this with caution and in small in remembers at a time until you get the right amount of opening. It's easy to open it too much but it's very worth not straining your hand for the many feedings your baby is bound to have with this type of feeder. Wash this piece of the bottle with cold to barely lukewarm water so that the opening doesn't loosen over time. If you find it is loosening, try putting it in the freezer for a day and it seems to close up enough to be useable again.

As all of us with cleft babies know, these nipples are essential but a huge rip off. My kid chomps a hole in about one a month and he doesn't even have teeth. $17 is ridiculous when our hands are completely tied. BUT what can you do. They keep the milk out of his nose. These Medela ones are nice, fit all sizes of medela bottles and all of their bottle caps are interchangeable too. We thicken our son's formula with rice cereal due to aspiration (pierre robin), and so I cut a teeny slit in the tip to compensate. He ripped them even before I started enlarging the opening for the record. We also don't use the valve (membrane). The flow lines still work this way and the bottle doesn't leak. It'll freak out your speech therapist, but it works great :)

Excelente producto

my youngest granddaughter has a bilateral cleft lip and palate and has to use these nipples. the down side is they only last 4-6 weeks then we have to replace them. if someone had a bundle or would sell a years supply at a reasonable price then the parents with bclp would be willing to pay out of pocket and not worry about insurance.

These feeders are great for kids with cleft lip But they are super expensive just for one and they only last about two weeks have no choice, but to buy them!

No hay nada que hablar, todo, absolutamente todo bien.

My son has to use the special feeder because of a cleft palate. The nipple on them has been the only thing that wears out for our 6 months of use. His nutritionist said to make sure that the hole does not get to big, as it does with normal use, or it will leak out and he will get to much. The instructions say to replace the nipple every 5 weeks, which we have not had to do since he has several bottle in use at a time. After we ordered 6 of the full bottles, we switched to ordering the nipples to replace the ones we had to throw away. Wish they were cheaper, but they are a must for our son.

I have very mixed feelings about this product. On the one hand, it is great to be able to feed my son from a bottle in spite of his cleft lip and palate. On the other hand, the replacement nipples are outrageously expensive. Regular Medela nipples are $5.50 for three at my local Babies"R"Us, and for one replacement Special Needs feeder it's how much? Also, Medela recommends replacing these every few months, but I find that they are tattered and torn to the point of being unusable after 2 or 3 weeks. Basically I have to order new ones as soon as my new ones arrive. I feel like we are getting fleeced for this product and I am not sure why, because it doesn't appear to me to be more complicated to manufacture than the regular Medela nipple. In fact, the mold looks like it must be simpler. I would be really curious to know why the price is so high and the product is so flimsy. Maybe just because Medela has a captive market since there are no other options if you want to bottle feed your baby.