Bottle feeding, what do I do?!

[Jojo1992]

I’m due to give birth to my first child on the 7th March and unfortunately it will not be possible for me to breastfeed and will instead be bottle feeding. I’ve seen all the instructions and videos on how to prepare a bottle, but what I’m most concerned about it how long it takes to make it. Everyone says you boil the kettle and leave for half hour and I understand why you do this, but what do you do if your baby starts crying and you need to feed them? It’s going to take about 40 minutes before the bottle is ready which I don’t understand how this is practical, especially during the night! Can anyone who has bottle fed pleasw offer me advice on how they managed to do this. I’ve asked the midwife and been to the baby classes but I don’t seem to have any more of an idea of what I should do, it’s all about the breast in those classes

I used a perfect prep machine.
When out and about I took a hot flask and a flask of cooled boiled water. I would steralise the formula with a couple of oz boiled water and then top up with the cooled.

Tommy Tippee machine makes a bottle in two minutes. Totally worth the money we spent on it. Until we got the hang of formula, we used the ready made stuff at nights and when out but it’s expensive to use all the time.

Some people will make up the bottles before bed and put them in the fridge but if you do this, do make sure you make them with boiling water to kill any bugs before you cool them. Don’t add the powder to cold water.

You’ll start to know when it’ll be time for a bottle and be ready!

I used to make bottles up and put them in the fridge and warm when needed.

Isn't that a thing anymore? I can't keep up with all this new fangled stuff

I used to boil the water, fill the bottles, let them cool and then put in the fridge. When needed, add powder, shake, heat in the microwave for about 30 seconds per 60ml. Take out, shake again, test temperature, feed. The issue with this method as you probably know is that the powder doesn't see hot water so if there is anything contaminating the milk powder it won't get killed off. I would just note that in Germany where I live (not a country known for its lackadaisical attitude to... anything, really), the instructions on the milk boxes (including brands available in the UK) say to use cooled boiled water. So while hot water is best practice, maybe if you have to do the cooled boiled water shortcut, you can derive some comfort from the fact that there is a whole generation of German babies currently surviving on milk made this way

There is a more complicated method that uses half and half hot boiled water and cooled boiled water but I can't remember how that works, as you're supposed to measure out the water and then the powder, bit someone will come on soon who knows it..

I bottle fed both of mine. Every morning I made up enough bottles for 24 hours , using sterile bottles and boiled water. Kept them in the fridge and then just put the bottle into a jug of hot water to warm them as needed. It took about 1 minute to warm a bottle, just long enough for me to put a clean nappy on them . Never had a problem.

You can cool it down quicker by standing the bottle in a cup of cold water or running it under the cold tap, just check it on your wrist before you give to the baby to make sure it's not too hot. Babies can wait those few minutes so don't panic too much if you're getting screamed at, as long as baby is fed every two or three hours, it will be fine.

You can also get cartons of ready to feed formula which are very handy if you're on the go or need to do night feeds.

They don't recommend that you make bottles up and store them in the fridge but we did it for night feeds and we were fine. We warmed them in a cup of hot water not the microwave though.

I would really recommend a plug in steriliser, ours was a god send!

Hope all goes well!

Perfect prep machine! 😁

Your baby will usually give you feeding cues a little while before they cry with hunger (waving arms, sucking hands and "rooting"). This gives you time to prepare a feed. Its fine to put your boiled water into a thermos flask and make each bottle fresh with that water. The very hot water must always go in first, then add powder. The heat kills any bacteria in the power. Swirl the bottle very gently to mix them run under the cool tap until it is cool enough to drink. Perfect prep machines are not recommended by NHS staff as they do not prepare the milk in the recommended way. They also add too much air bubbles to the formula causing colicky babies.

You’re supposed to make fresh every time, but many people don’t.

The most important thing is that the milk powder is added to the hot water to sterilise it. It’s not the bottle that the hot water is sterilising.

For night we started with premade formula. Then once she was bigger I made the bottle before bed, cooled quickly and the heated it later when needed. But that’s absolutely not the recommended way. X

Midwifes at my hospital advise against the perfect prep machine as they cannot be cleaned properly.

You need the water to be hot when making the milk as it kills the bugs in the milk powder. I boil kettle, wait 30 mins and make a few bottles Rapidly cool in sink and put at the back of the fridge for max 24hrs. I usually make some in the morning for the day, then a fresh batch on an evening for night feeds. Then get out when needed and warm.

This is how the WHO recommend making them if you can't make fresh each time if I recall.

Perfect Prep machine worked really well for us. I also found that once I switched to formula from bf (I didn’t breastfeed for long) DD quickly got into a routine of 3, then 4 hourly feeds. I would offer the bottle every 3 hours regardless of whether she was crying etc. So I knew we would feed at 7, 10, 1, 4, 7, 10 etc. (But never at night, I would never wake her overnight!)

I also found by doing this, and encouraging lots of milk in the day, she slept through from quite early on. (Of course that is no guarantee, but worked well for us).

Wishing you all the best with your new baby.

Always made up 6 bottles at a time, with boiling water, and refrigerated. Warmed them up in a cup of boiling water when needed.

cooled boiling water.

Made them up in morning and warmed when needed

The instructions don't say to leave the water for half an hour. They say to leave the water for no more than half an hour. Big difference!

So you can boil the kettle, wait a few minutes, then make up the formula and flash cool.

In the early days you might find the ready made cartons/bottles to be easier, although they are more expensive.

The reason it’s not advised to make up 24 hours worth of bottles in advance any more is because the preservative they used in formula back then is no longer in the formula now.

I used a Prep Machine for my youngest.

Before that, I’d pour cooled boiled water into one bottle, say pour 1.5oz into a new bottle then top it up with fresh boiled water to make sure it was hot enough to kill any bacteria.

I used the cartons when out and about.

I make mine in advance. If your bottles are sterile, the water is hot enough and you don't leave them for longer than 24h the risks are minimal.

Perfect prep machine and ready made bottles for when out and about.

I don't know how accurate it is but there are concerns the perfect prep doesn't allow enough hot water to kill all the bacteria.

We used ready made formula with the teats for the first few week or so then perfect prep.....now we make 24hrs up in one go, flash cool and fridge

Use a Perfect Prep machine at home. Honestly. Don't even bother researching it ... just buy one!!! For out and about I used pre made stuff and just poured into a sterile bottle. Simple!

I have used Perfect Prep machine since 6 weeks old (midwife couldn’t endorse the Perfect Prep as NHS doesn’t, so suggested waiting this amount of time to build up baby’s immune system a little first) and I use ready made bottles of formula and a sterilised bottle if out and about. So much easier to use the machine as I seemed to be continually boiling the kettle!

You can mimic a perfect prep with a kettle and a jug of cooled boiled water. Cheaper too.

I made them up and kept them a max of 12 hours
Nurse in hospital told me it was ok and my twins were both fine

We used a flask of water above 70 degrees - or whatever the temp is, I've forgotten now I'm way past needing to know! - (boiled put into flask would last at least 2 feeds), put 50% of required water in from flask to mix the powder, then top up with chilled boiled water for the other 50%. Worked perfectly.