How do you go out and about with baby bottles

[Rainyrain]

I might be being really simple but.....

Many moons ago when my daughter was bottle fed I was able to make up a days worth of bottles and pop them in the fridge to be heated up when needed. If we went out we took a cold bottle of made up milk, a travel flask and heated it up when it was needed.

I have a brand new grandchild who is bottle fed. Each bottle needs to be made up fresh with boiled water that is at least 70 degrees to kill any bacteria in the formula which is fine when at home but how do you manage this when you’re shopping or at the park etc?
At the moment my daughter is taking the little pre made bottles of formula but this is quite costly.

How do you do it?

As this is your GC rather than your child you will have to see what your daughter is comfortable with but the making up guidelines for bottles changed between my first and second child but I just did them the same.
Note - this is NOT current guidelines
I took made up bottles out of the fridge out with me in a cool bag and then used hot water from a cafe or similar (or took a flask) to make a bath to heat the milk.

I used to make the bottle up fresh just before we left the house and put it in an insulator where it'll be fine for two hours.

For a long day / multiple feed out, I'd do that and then take fresh bottles and a couple of sealed pre mixed formula bottles with me. A bit more expensive, but a lot less faff.

Well, I live in the Netherlands where advice for formula is a bit different (why, beats me...), but I always went out with a thermos with hot water and would mix in with cold water to get to the right temperature. I had the powder in a special box you could just tip in the bottle. But I would also microwave the water, and give it a good swirl to get rid of any hot spots. Worked just fine.

At the moment my daughter is taking the little pre made bottles of formula but this is quite costly.
I don’t think so , there a 75p so £1.50 if out for four/five hours. Plus you can take a fresh one with you so you get up to six hours four £1.50. You would spend more than that on drinks, snacks lunch for an older child’s nutritional needs.

Hoppinggreen that is exactly what I used to do and my children all turned out fine! But understandably my daughter wants to follow the more recent guidelines but we just can’t think of a way to follow them correctly when out with no access to kettles, microwaves, perfect prep machines. It’s almost impossible to do in the way it is advised without buying the little pre made bottles.
If I was a conspiracy theory believer I would think the new guidelines were there to make people spend more money on the pre made stuff......

I took cooled boiled water and measured out powder in the special pots.

Ok it’s not costly in the grand scheme of things but it is more expensive than using the powder

Based on 9 years ago, when my DD was a baby:

If I would need the first bottle less than 2h after leaving home, I might make up that bottle at home (using the hot fresh boiled water method you describe). Otherwise, I'd use cartons, just like your granddaughter is doing.

The reason the guidelines changed is because a huge batch of formula powder in China was found to be contaminated with bacteria! ( I think e-coli if I remember correctly. There is always a risk with powder that it could contain bacteria. That is why the guidelines say to make sure the powder is mixed with near boiling water first. I mean the risk of contamination is minimal and the chances of it happening to your grandchild are very slim but the risk is there, especially in the first three months.
So when I'm out I take a thermos of boiling water and some containers with the formula in. I also take another container with boiled water that has cooled in the fridge(I keep this cold with an ice pack). Then when I need to make up the bottle on the go, I mix the powder with about 60ml of the boiled hot water from the thermos until dissolved and then top up with the cooled water. That way the milk is then the perfect temperature and ready to drink. It's a bit of a pain prepping it all to take with you but once your out and need the bottle it's super quick.
Also I think it's really lovely that your respecting your daughters wishes in trying to follow the new guidelines. I'm sure she will really appreciate it

I've bottle fed three children and this is what I do.

I take a flask of boiling water with me. We have a great one from thermos which is only 300ml so quite small and I tested the water after 8hrs and it's still over 70 degrees.

I then make up small bottles of measured out boiled water and cool them overnight for the next day to take out. I use ones meant for expressed milk so they are small.

Proportions vary depending how much you make, but my daughter currently has a 4oz bottle so when out I put 1oz of the hot water in the bottle and add the powder (I have a special tub with segments in it for storing the powder) then add the pre measured 3oz of cold boiled water. And voila a 4oz bottle at the right temperature.

Now I appreciate that this sounds a right faff, but I can make a bottle in less than 30 seconds and all it takes to make up the water is boiling the kettle once the night before and once the day of.

This approach pretty much replicates what a perfect prep machine does, which I use at home.

I'm a new mum and am making up my bottles as you have described (WHO advise this method)
When I go out with baby I take a little bottle/s of the pre made and decant into a sterilised bottle.

I wouldn't be comfortable taking a made bottle out with me as I couldn't keep it cool enough until it was needed.

Tommee Tippee flask, make the bottle with the boiling water, put cold water in the tub part to cool the bottle down. Powder in little pots. I did this with both of mine.

With DS2 I relied a little more on the pre-made cartons just because it was easier with a baby and a toddler. I'll nice you get used to it it's easy really, it seems like a right faff in the beginning though.

Currently formula feeding. If going out and about tend to take the bottles of premade formula as I find that easiest and luckily I can do that. If going to a friends house/ family I take a sterilised pot of formula then make it up there. My mum used to do it the way you did and I was fine so did say you could do it her way when she starts to have him but she finds it easier to use premade as well. My friend’s little one is on formula for cows milk allergy so has to make it up- she has the little Tommee Tippee portion pots, takes a flask of hot boiled water and one cooled boiled water then does what the prep machine does. If I’m honest I’m glad I can take out the premade bottles as I find it is much less stuff to carry and worry about. Particularly when weaning starts and you have those things to think about as well.

I did @nameisnotimportant and @mistermagpie did. Or use the pre made stuff.

When feeding times were a bit more predictable, if I was going out for lunch, I’d just take the cooled boiled water and ask the cafe to put a small amount of boiling in the bottle.

Hot water in flask, 1oz into clean bottle, powder in,shake, premeasured cooked boiled water in, shake

but this is quite costly.
I don’t think so , there a 75p so £1.50 if out for four/five hours.
Which if they're out a few days a week could be nearly a fiver a week, so £20 a month, which IS expensive for some families

If you take a chilled bottle of premade formula out it is ok for 4 hours if kept in a cool bag with ice pack. If not fed from it is ok for 2 hours at room temperature. Or take a flask of hot water and measured formula out and make up as required

www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/infant-formula-questions/ gives some options

We lived in our touring caravan for 3 months when ds was FF, as we only had a tiny fridge I used the cartons of ready mixed milk, if we were going out I preheated a couple of bottles & put them in an insulated bottle bag, made them slightly warmer than needed & by the time ds needed a feed, they were at the right temperature, if we were going to be out for longer, I took pre sterilised bottles & cartons of milk. I always tried to make sure ds had a feed just before we went out to give us longer to be out.

You either take hot water or cold milk. I wouldn't take warm milk.

It's ok to make bottles up in advance as long as they are made up according to instructions with 70c+ water, cooled down rapidly and stored in a fridge. You could then take one of those preprepared bottles out with you in a cool bag with ice packs. The NHS say that it's perfectly safe to do so if it's not possible to make up fresh each time.

Premade formula or pre measured formula powder, a flask if boiling water and a bottle of cooled boiled water. So if I was making a 5oz bottle I'd pour in 2oz boiling, add the premeasyred formula, shake then top up with 3oz cooled boiled water.

I'd say the way to do it within the guidelines is take a flask of boiling water then ask a cafe for a jug of cold/ice water (or take cold water bottle). Make bottle with boiling water/powder and then put into jug of cold water to cool.

This takes sometime to cool though so what I did was. Take bottle of cooled bottle water and a empty bottle and flask of boiling water. Then put 2oz of boiling water in (empty) bottle mix with powder then add 4oz of cooled water (you have to measure out rather that going to 6oz Mark as the powder will make a 6oz bottle more than 6oz) This is what the perfect prep machine does.

Cooled boiled water

Thank you for the advice. It looks like a flask of boiling water, pre measured amounts of cooled boiled water, sterilised bottles and measured scoops of powder are the way forward.
It was definitely simpler back in my day!