Average Price: $3-5
Availability: Comes with all Medela breast pumps, replacements available online.
Product Rating:
Product Link: Medela Replacement Parts on “My Breast Pump.com”

Milk collection bottles are one of the more humdrum aspects of motherhood, and- if you’re a pumping mother- one of the most important ones. I’ve experimented with a variety of collection bottles, from the ones that came with my original Evenflo breast pump, to those that came with my Medela Pump in Style, to replacement bottles and storage bottles that I purchased online.

The Medela bottles are hands-down my favorites, for a number of reasons.

1- They have a 5oz capacity, which means that you can pump 4oz with a generous amount of clearance that allows you to freeze the bottles if you choose to do so, and that also leaves some wiggle room for pumping- less of a risk of overflow. They also have a standard opening size and thread, which allows you to easily screw on replacement nipples of your choice.

2- The bottle is slightly tapered, wider at the base and more narrow toward the neck. This gives the bottle additional stability, which is very important when you’re basically handling liquid gold that takes a lot of calories to produce, and a lot of minutes to pump. The more straight-up-and-down bottles make a little bump far too easy to tip the bottle over. (Additional stability is easy to get with the bottle bases)

3- The bottles are well made of thick plastic, with a good thread. No worries about mis-threading the cap, or of the bottles melting when you heat them. These are well made compared to some of the other bottles on the market.

4- The separated cream of the milk does not seem to stick to the sides of the bottle as easily as with some other brands, and simply swishing the milk before using it is enough to wash the sides and reclaim the creamy part of the milk. (Another reason I like to freeze in bottles rather than bags)

My only complaint with these bottles is also one of the things that I LIKE about them. The standard sized opening at the neck is too small to easily clean the bottles. That is one of the nice aspects of Avent bottles, the super-wide neck. Ahh.. What the heck, you can’t win them all.