Not to heat DS's milk?

[Gwenci]

DS is 11 weeks old and is EBF. One of his afternoon feeds is a bottle of expressed milk, just to make sure he'll take a bottle if he ever has to. (You never know, I might get the chance to brush my hair and slip my dancing shoes on. We live in hope!)

Anyway, he was bawling away just now, demanding his milk and I was cursing having to wait for the expressed milk to warm (it was straight out of the fridge). So thought I'd stick the teat in his mouth, assuming he'd pull a face, reject it and then I'd carry on heating it.

Turns out the greedy little munchkin doesn't care if it's warm or cold. He guzzled it all straight from the fridge, no warming.

Is this ok? I've read other forums where horrified mums have shrieked 'it'll give them a CHILL!!!' Or at the very least tummy ache. Is this true? Or can I carry on giving him fridgey milk?!

[Piffyonarockbun]

i never warmed milk for my DD. milk was either room temperature or straight from the fridge. i never saw any ill effects and it stood her in good stead as she will now drink water or milk at any temperature .
initially i did worry about her getting tummy ache but she never seemed to.

[DonkeyOaty]

Mine didn't care as long as it was bm. Cup, bottle, syringe, warm, refrigerated.
Or straight from source ofc.

[Oobis]

Fab!! My DS was exclusively BF then topped up with formula. I often have him ambient temp milk, terribly helpful to be able to when you're out and about and have a carton in your bag. If he likes it, don't make work for yourself! You might even get time for a cuppa with brushed hair ;-)

[AdeleDazeem]

My DD preferred her milk cold. I remember reading that, although cold milk wouldn't be very nice for little baby's tummy, the milk will be plenty warm by the time it actually gets there.

[Jengnr]

Mine was ff but had it warm or cold depending on whether I could be arsed. He was fine.

[GloGirl]

My first only had cold or room temp top up bottles it was SO easy!

My second will only have his milk just so

[Gwenci]

My thoughts exactly Adele! It's not like when I drink iced water I'm thinking 'gosh, that's making my stomach rather frosty.' So unless babies stomach's have magical nerve endings that ours don't, I'm guessing it's more of a preference thing.

Oobis, I'm thinking maybe even a cuppa that I haven't already microwaved twice!! Living the dream!

[DoJo]

Mine drank milk straight from the fridge from the first time we gave him a bottle, at about 8 weeks old. I decided there was no point starting off with warm milk if he would be happy with cold, and he always was.

[Number3cometome]

I didn't warm my two children's expressed milk, just left it out to room temperature.

Will be doing the same again!

[IssyStark]

I fed from the tap and also used EBF for when I was out and when ds1 went to nursery. We never ever heated the milk. The only time it was ever slightly warm was if we'd been defrosting it [see tip below] but even then we warmed it to the point of no ice crystals not to blood temperature. It meant that ds was happy to take his milk whenever and wherever he could get it. Made life much easier

Top tip for freezing EBF (you may well already know this but I was freezing for a couple of months before I found out): if you freeze it in bags, freeze only a few ounces at a time in bags and freeze the bags flat. This means you can not only stack more milk in the freezer (flat freezing is more space efficient) but it take no time at all to defrost. Putting the bag in a mug of hot water or just running it under the hoot tap is enough to defrost - no microwaves and hot spots to worry about.

[SquinkiesRule]

I never heated any of Dd's bottles. I think I did the first couple weeks then realized what a faff it was and she didn't care. So it was cold from then on.

[NotSleepyAtAll]

Another one here who never heated, only straight from fridge. I did it out of desperation once and realised she didn't care. I only ever gave it cold from then on. She had no issues at all.

[caffiene99]

No it's fine. I often let my son have expressed milk cold. He was a bottle refuser for a while and, when he decided he'd drink from a bottle again, he often preferred the milk cold.

[Newdad19]

Makes no difference and you should 100% make the most of it!

A lot of babies simply refuse it if it isnt of a similar temperature as it would be straight from the body, but if your fortunate enough your baby is happy enough to then definitely savour it!!

[CaptainSwan]

So much easier, go for it!

[DisappointedOne]

Lucky you. I exclusively pumped for DD who point blank refused to so much as sniff it if it was below 40oC. Don't know what she would have done had I given it to her straight from the boob!

[DisappointedOne]

I exclusively pump for my daughter she's 16 weeks and she's never had it heated, it's always at room temp as I've not needed my freezer stash yet.

Amazing. Well done you. (Ex pumper)

[DreamPhone]

I found that whatever my dd accepted changed month to month (e.g bottles of ebm or a sneaky bit of formula one month but not the next) so I would say make hay while the sun shines!

[hobnobsaremyfriends]

Dont want to put a downer on it but some cultures do believe that drinking cold liquids will give you the chills. Although I believe HCPs would disagree with this!

The only thing I would note is that cold liquids take longer to digest by the body. My DD had constipation quite a bit when younger and I always warmed up her milk so that it didnt block her up even more . Maybe with you DS being so young, cold liquids would make him feel full for longer, and he'd end up missing feeds or drinking less milk? (worst case scenario)

[Mia1415]

I never warmed my DSs milk & he was absolutely fine. Much easier.

[NRomanoff]

Dd wouldn't have warm milk. She also hated been breast fed. When moved on to bottle feeding when she was 5 weeks, bottles came out of the fridge and straight to her.

Ds would only have it warm, I found that more of a pita. When he was hungry he would scream and scream. When a baby is crying it's seems to take an age to warm the bottle up.

[ChickenLaVidaLoca]

Tummy ache thing and chills are both bollocks, with no evidence whatsoever to support either. Babies just have different preferences, same as adults.

[ThereIsIron]

Just heat in the microwave, same as everyone else.

[Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost]

It's not unreasonable at all to do what you can to make your life as easy as possible. New babies are hard work.
I never used to warm my dd's bottles. For the simple reason you're not always going to be in a position to, say if you're out. Plus my dd was still is a hungry Horace, and she wouldn't have waited say 10 mins for a bottle to warm up.
Like I said new babies and being a new mum is hard enough especially if it's your first and you're still learning. I had no desire to make things more complicated for myself