Holle provides one of the top notch formulas (or is that formulae?) but they are only available in pharmacies (or so I've seen anyway).
Also, with Aptamil, you can travel around most of the rest of Europe and find it there so if your baby is only used to a particular brand you can only buy here you are a bit stuck if you are on holiday and you run out and they don't like any of the local brands on offer.
Good luck!
Here I used Bimbosan. My son got a rash from Milupa and I would never consider Nestle.
Pat
We also used Aptamil and were very happy with it.
They have a large range and also the night milk for later etc
It was easy to travel as you find it everywhere
One tip: if you are planning to use formula for long check whether you have a Sunstore pharmacy near you. You can buy a fidelity card for 40 CHF yearly and get 19 % off on the 10th of the month.
Given the boxes are about 26-28 CHF snd you use about 1/week you can really save.
Cheers,
K
Also, try shopping at a Muller if one is nearby, a good price discount compared to COOP and Migros.
As another poster said, if you travel in Europe or sometimes abroad, you will find its availablity easier than some others.
I think that we first tried Aptamil but it seemed very greasy compared to others, and anyway our daughter didn't take to it. But I could be wrong -- it was a while ago Anyway, Beba was the best for us.
I know a lot of people have worries about formula making the baby fat (I know I did), but I can honestly say that has not happened with this formula. Besides regaining the lost weight (he was down to like the 5th percentile in weight, and is now back at the 25th, which the doctor says is the normal curve for him), there is no difference in his body type when compared to the first 4+ months.
Bimbosan has a "bio" (organic) regular milk and a non-bio, so if you want the bio variety, check the package. Here are the products in English.
They also have some supplements you can add in as the baby's appetite grows. We use the "Bifrutta" (fruit), "Bio-Reis" (rice), "Bio-7" (7 grains), and "Primosan" (vegetable). We tried about one spoon of the Bircher Müesli before the little one clamped up his jaw and refused to take another bite, so I guess it's a little trial and error. You can sometimes ask for 1-serving samples at drugstores of the supplement powders to try them out, but not for starter milk, as it's apparently against Swiss law to give out that type (probably because they want to encourage breastfeeding).
My son is now almost 9 months old, and he is eating about 50/50 milk formula (usually with a supplement added) and solids.
10 days ago we started to wean our little one off the breast by replacing one feed per day with formula and then in the second week, increase the formula feeds by one.
For the first 8 days we were in Spain using a locally produced Spanish product. We had no problems and everything seemed to be going ok, i.e. he seemed to enjoy drinking it and there were no side effects.
Upon our return to Basel we ran out of the Spanish product so bought Bimbosan SP1 on the advice of the pharmacist.
Approximately 2 hrs after the feed, red blotches appeared all over his body. We thought it may be due to the heat and after 3-4 hrs, the red marks began to fade.
Day 2 on Bimbosan ... same thing again, but this time the red blotches were topped off with yellow tops ... almost like bad mosquito bites.
We took him to the Kinderspitaland and after seeing the photos I took and the remaining blotches (they had started to fade again) the doctor recommended changing formula.
We have now chosen Aptamil, so fingers crossed this is OK.
If anyone wants the remaining Bimbosan, you can have it for free.