This is purely anecdotal and based upon nothing except my personal
experience, but it was the Avent bottle, fed with tongue position in careful
check, that finally bridged the gap for my daughter at 7 days old.  She had
been bottle-fed in the hospital because of very severe jaundice (bilirubin
21.7 at 18 hours old and rising) and a lack of support from the nurses when
I asked to feed my baby in a different way than by bottle.  The bottles the
hospital used were purely to encourage as much of the feed as possible to go
straight into Anna with as little effort from her as possible...so the
transition to breastfeeding was not an easy one (I had one flat and one
inverted nipple, which complicated things).

Anyway, we used the Avent bottle to help make the transition.  I'm always
amused to tell how the story ends:  once we got to breastfeeding, I stopped
with bottles altogether for several weeks to get breastfeeding firmly
established before I went back to work (at 12 weeks postpartum).  When we
tried again, Anna had nothing to do with the bottles...any bottles (and we
tried them all except Dr. Brown's), ever again.  Not even once.  The good
news about that was I wasn't about to let her starve or cry (though some
told me if I "trained her" she'd eventually have to "give in"), so I learned
and created ways to be with her more than I would have if she'd taken a
bottle...and she taught me beautifully that breastfeeding wasn't going to be
about the milk. :)  She thrived for 6 months solely on milk straight from
the tap, me (and didn't wean until about a year ago, at almost age 4).

My 2nd baby was also not terribly interested in bottles (I didn't bother
trying, really) but would sometimes take 1/2 ounce if our caregiver offered
it, again, from the Avent bottle, just to take the edge off (I was always
home to feed him within 3-4 hours, most of which he slept because he nursed
all night).

Anecdotally as well, I've heard of babies having an easier time switching
between breast and Dr. Brown's bottles than others.  One of the Playtex
nipples seems to work for a lot of moms.  

We bought that "breast bottle" out of desperation and found it to be very
messy.  Anna wasn't even sort of fooled by it.  It did get a lot of laughs,
though, among our friends. 

I think it's tough to pinpoint what will work for moms and babies because
there are so many variables.  What works great for one may be terrible for
another, so I usually encourage families who need or want to use a bottle to
avoid the fast-flow ones altogether and see what works for them and their
baby.

--Diana in NY

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