How do you make/store formula

[Icklepickle101]

I'm starting to give ds (5. months) formula but unsure the best way to make/store it? The tub says to add to hot water and use in 30 minutes but that's not always practical if we are out/middle of the night.

Is there a way to do a few bottles at once safely?

[dementedpixie]

You can make a few up with hot water, cool quickly and put in the fridge. They are ok for 24 hours. Ready made cartons are good if you are out- just take a sterilised bottle out with you

[Dani2016]

What's the best bottle feeding starter kits? I'm due in December and want to be all ready and prepared for when baby comes. Thinking of bottle feeding but I don't know where to start. Any tips would be greatly appreciated x

[Ffion3107]

No you can't store ready made bottles. Or you couldn't 2 years ago as it increases the risk of infection.
As long as the water has been boiled and taken out of the kettle after 30 minutes you can use it. DD often had her formula at room temperature, if we went out I took a bottle with sterile water and the formula in a tub so the bottle was made when she was ready. The ready made cartons are fab, if your son prefers is warm just let it stand in hot water for a few minutes, never microwave.x

[dementedpixie]

You can actually store them although best practice is to make them up as you need them. From nhs site www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/infant-formula-questions.aspx

• If made-up formula is stored in a fridge, use within 24 hours.
  
• If made-up formula is stored in a cool bag with an ice pack, use within four hours.
  
• If made-up formula is stored at room temperature, use within two hours.

[dementedpixie]

Ffion It's not the water that's the issue, it's the powder so if you are using boiled water that is at room temperature then that will not kill the bacteria in the formula. Water should cool for no longer than 30 minutes so it is still over 70 degrees when it has the powder added to it to kill bacteria in the powder.

[porkpieandgin]

Make sure to make up the first bit with very hot water - this kills any bacteria that's in the powdered milk as its not sterile. This bit is important.
I have seen so many people in pubs/restaurants recently just add lukewarm water to powder.
Like dementedpixie said, you can make up the bottles with hot water as normal, then chill quickly, but best practice is that they must be used with 12 hours. Not 24. But you must be regimented and throw away.
Alternatively, cartons are fab for when you're out and about!

[porkpieandgin]

dementedpixie
Thats odd, I'm looking at a leaflet from the drs surgery that says 12 hours...! it was printed March 2016.

[EdmundSlackbladder]

Ready made cartons are best for out and about. You can take a flask of hot water to rinse out the bottle before you use it. For preparing and storing at home I used to make up 3 or 4 bottles with boiling water. Then I'd flash cool them under cold running water (I'd put them in a large saucepan and run the cold tap quite hard over them) and then store in the fridge until I needed to use. I think I'd only keep them for 12 hours.

Babies can have tap water at six months so from then I would add a large splash of boiling water to the formula powder in the bottle and then top up with tap water. Much easier.

[5minutestobed]

Make up in advance and keep in the fridge. I used to keep them for 24 hours but maybe that's changed. For out and about I take a bottle in a cool bag for use within two hours, if I'm going to be out longer than that I would take ready made stuff as well.
For night time I take a bottle in a cool bag to bed and then replace with another when needed. Once they are down to one feed during the night I just leave it in the fridge and dash through to get it when he wakes up.
I've never given warm milk so they drink it out the fridge or room temp.

[LikeaSnowflake]

The guidance is to make them up as you need them, hence the sale of the Tommee Tippee Perfect Prep machine.

I started formula feeding at 4 months and have never done this or used the machine.

The important thing is the powder is sterilised with hot water as it is not sterile itself. I used to make up my 3 morning feeds first thing with boiling water, cool quickly and store at the back of the fridge (where it stays coldest) and then at midday do the same for the afternoon/evening feeds ( my dc was not feeding during the night by this point).

This meant I used the bottles within 6 hours of being made up. I felt happy with this as an acceptable level of risk as from research I found that it was very unlikely that bacteria could grow enough in the feed during this time to cause a problem to my child.

When out and about I took a sterilised bottle and used ready made cartons for my own convenience.

At the end of the day you have to decide what you are happy to accept in terms of risk. Some will feel safer following the guidance exactly, others are happy to make bottles in advance using the caveats about careful preparation and storage.

[Just5minswithDacre]

Having had my babies in the 90s and 00s when standard advice was to make up 24 hrs' worth at a time and store in fridge (and bearing in mind I BFed in early months before switching to FF when babies were older), I must admit I would probably do 12hr batches if I had another baby now.

For an otherwise healthy baby, given perfectly sterilised bottles and generally good hygiene, the risk is really very small indeed.

I quite understand why most people follow current advice, especially first time parents, but some previous threads on this subject have got histrionic about the alleged risk.

[dementedpixie]

It's not the bottles that need sterilising as such, but the formula powder itself.

[Just5minswithDacre]

I know demented but in these incredibly rare cases, who knows where and how the responsible bacteria thrived and for how long?

[dementedpixie]

When my dc's were babies I used pre boiled, room temperature water and added the powder when required! Made night feeds super easy but totally against what you should do now

[Just5minswithDacre]

So I'm saying scrupulously sterilised bottles + formula initially made with boiling water and stored properly for 12 hrs max would be a completely acceptable (ie tiny) level of risk to me. I'm not known for being gung-ho about babies either.

Not sure if we're in agreement or not?

[Just5minswithDacre]

Ah ISWYM

[Dizzydodo]

I loved my tommee tippee perfect prep machine and ready made cartons when out and about.

[Just5minswithDacre]

I've just googled the perfect prep - it uses plain filtered tap water after a blast of 50 degree water! That's not safer than the old way!

[Icklepickle101]

Sorry for disappearing

Thanks for all the input, it seems it varies a lot!!

Had a look at perfect prep and surely there is a manual way to do this -
Boil kettle, add 5ozs water to bottle and cool then add 2 ozs hot/boiling water and formula as needed? Assuming a flask would keep the water warm enough when out?

I looked the the cartons but they come in 200mls or 1 litre and he is having about 240mls so doesn't quite work out!

[dementedpixie]

You need to add the hot water first and mix before topping up with cold water so that the hot water kills any bacteria in the formula

[MyBreadIsEggy]

Ickle you need to do that the other way around:
Add 2oz of boiling/very hot water first. Add all the powder to that and shake it up, then add the cooled water. The only reason you need to use boiling water at all for formula is to kill bacteria in the powder - it's nothing to do with the water being sterile.

[mummytohpm]

How would that work though bread?

If you're adding hot, then powder then cold, you won't have the right amount of liquid.

When you put the powder in the hot water the powder is going to displace the water and make the level rise so when you add the cool water to make up to however many oz, you're not adding enough are you?

Like when you make a bottle with boiling water then add powder, it ends up at a higher level than it was before you added the powder iyswim?

The perfect prep obviously measures out the water - rather than going by the levels on the bottle.

You'd have to take out exact amounts of water with you which would be an absolute pain in the arse!

[Just5minswithDacre]

I would boil and cool any water I gave a baby eggy. Has that advice changed too?

[dementedpixie]

Babies can have tap water as a drink from 6 months old so doesn't need boiling. It only needs boiling to make up formula after that age

[Just5minswithDacre]

Well I'd relax a lot of rules, including bottle sterilisation, from 6-9 months, but before that?