I didn't say anything to this new Mum, and now I wonder if I should have done...

[lurcherlover]

In Starbucks, a couple came in with their baby (brand new - no more than a couple of weeks old). Dad goes to get coffees, Mum sits down opposite me and starts to make a bottle up. She got a bottle of water out, mixed formula powder in it then proceeded to feed it straight to baby. Obviously therefore the water had been boiled at home, but allowed to cool while they were out. I assumed she didn't realise the bacteria are in the formula, but believed the widely-held myth that it's the water that's dangerous. I nearly said something - I wasn't at all going to be rude, I was going to say something along the lines of "I hope you don't mind me saying, but you'd be better keeping a flask of water straight from the kettle with you, mixing the powder in a bit of that and then topping it up with cooled boiled water so baby can drink it" - but I held off and didn't say anything because I'm a wimp I thought it wasn't my business. But afterwards, I thought, if it had been me and I was doing something (however unwittingly) that might be putting my baby's health at risk, I would want another Mum to tell me so in as non-threatening a way as possible. So I wonder if I should have said something. What do you think?

(Disclaimer: this is in NO WAY intended to be an anti-FF thread - I just wanted to point out to her the safest possible way to formula-feed her baby, not in any way to judge, so please don't think that comes into it)

also, regarding 'and my kids were never sick', do see the carseat analogy. you would be daft to say 'i never put my kids in a car seat' and look they are fine. yes, of course they are. that's cos no-one ever crashed into you.

edam that's what the WHO say is the second-best way of doing it. so long as powder meets water just before feeding, the bacteria isn't spending time colonising. afaia.

Re car seats obviously forward facing car seats are now deemed as unsafe and when I was a baby a carry cot with a seat belt was deemed as safe.

As I said before a bit of perspective is needed considering the millions of bottles made up every minute and the amount of bottles babies consume in a lifetime.

I just find it a tad ironic the way every few years you get advice about everything re what is good for kids/babies health,9 times out of 10 the goal posts are moved and said safety advice is eventually seen as not safe.

Common sense and a bit of perspective goes a loooong way in parenting imvho.

right, so you would pass up on the safest car seat because you have decided that strappign a carry cot didn't do your kid any harm? is that what you mean by perspective? because considering the amount of car journeys taken by kids every day versus the amount of car crashes, you'd not bother strapping in your kids at all... it's just not a high risk. but we do it, because it's safer, and only a right mutton-head would do the less safe thing when they can just as easily do the more safe thing.

No we do what is safest to a certain degree but obsessing which seems to be part of modern day parenting is really not good or necessary.

I take it all your dc are in rear facing car seats and your bf babies were weaned at 6 months for fear of iron deficiency.

ok aitch lets put it this way - currently I am in the shit mother category because I didn't make up the bottles in this fashion. However I was instructed to use cool, boiled water and that the predominant danger was from the boiling water from the kettle. But apparently this is wrong.

I was also told that I could give my dd Calpol Cold from 3 months. Which I did occasionally. This is also wrong now and therefore makes me a shit mother in the eyes of the differing views today.

In my parents day it was acceptable to smoke whilst breastfeeding and drink copious amounts of gin. I think this is shit mothering. With hindsight

And no I am not in the slightest bit underconfident about my parenting choices, however I have found those who are critical of my choices are the ones who aren't particularly confident.

so who exactly is putting you in the 'shit mother' category? if not yourself, then who?

Mind you......................

I could still be right about my choices of today as I did almost exclusively bf until 6 months with the occasional addition of pre-made formula. Post 6 months it was cool boiled water. Then tap water . I stand by they are still fine though!

i didn't bf, mrsheffley. hence my appearance on this thread and my supreme confidence in telling people that the 'new' guidelines aren't in the slightest bit new and nor are they difficult to adhere to.

Both mine were formula fed. I used to make up a days worth at a time for my daughter who is now 13 and keep in fridge, and microwave as required.

My son was a proper faffy fusser, I started making up bottles the same way but it turned out he liked his cold from the fridge, and he then started drinking more in one go.
We moved when he was 10 weeks old and lost the steriliser in the move, I never sterilised after that and at that point I used to make up his milk in a plastic jug and keep that in the fridge- would give him a couple of ounces and if he wanted more just topped up from the jug.

Neither of my kids are hardly ever ill, they've not had a day off school sick in nearly 3 years, so I must have done something right!

I was being slightly sarky.

in what way? no one had called you shit or anyone anything like it. if it was a hundred years ago we'd all have done vastly different things to now, because that would have been the best practice then. wouldn't have made us shit mothers in any sense.

god help our children if we can't accept that guidelines change and for good reason by the time it comes to our grandchildren coming along.

And same said youngest child started refusing formula at 7 months and went onto cows milk instead (with HVs approval!)

It is a bit strange to compare feeding formula to a baby in the incorrect way and putting a baby in a carseat in a car. They aren't massively comparable as the risks are so entirely different and far more complex (other people, vehicle conditions, road conditions any combination of the above, weather etc).

it's not strange at all. in both cases the accident/illness may never arise but we do the car seat thing automatically. and yet most of us will never use them.

I don't know, I can site more friends who have had accidents whilst in their cars with their children (not major but significant and not their fault either - hit at junctions/traffic lights) than who's ff children have been ill so perhaps I just can't see the correlation

As I have already said, I expect I am talking at cross purposes to this thread with regards to how to make up formula as I was lucky enough not to need it for every feed. Perhaps things have moved on, or perhaps HV give differing advice to different people. The whole point of coming on here though was to say that the OP was right to NOT say anything. If the baby was 2 weeks old perhaps they were on their first outing as a family. That really would have been an incredibly confident killing thing to do and I don't think anyone would have appreciated the interference at that early stage in motherhood. If she wasn't a first time mother, the op may well have had some rather unpleasant things said back to her so the wise choice was to say nothing.

The guidelines aren't new. Ds is 5.5 and we followed the 'new' guidelines (or rather spent a fortune on cartons for a few weeks until deciding to go back to bfing due to the hassle of it.

yes, and then you have a daughter like mine who was so dead against being strapped in that she managed to break TWO bugaboo bee seats through sheer physical strength at teh age of 18 months, once in the middle of a busy road. meaning that my risk assessment is now not to strap her in at all and just to hope like fuck that nothing happens.

god I am glad I breastfed both of mine, what a faff....

Pannacotta with me bfeeding was the faff,ff extremely easy.Horses for courses.

Im really shocked at this, I thought the way the Mum in the OP did it was what you are meant to do.

Seriously, this makes the weeks of bleeding nipples and mastitis seem like a nap on the sofa.

Why can't the formula manufacturers be forced into making their product sterile? It can't be that difficult, they manage it with other baby food, and they charge enough to make the sodding effort!

I thought that is how you are supposed to make bottles too. have just moved dd to ff and instructions say to use cooled (for 30 mins)boiled water. Now really confused.

I am glad the op said nothing.

I don't take sides in a ff/bf debate and firmly believe in support for either without judgement.

I do wonder though what the bacteria count is on nipples (I certainly didn't sterilise my breasts each feed, maybe a wipe with a muslin square/baby wipe at most) and whether its comparable to the bacteria present in formula? I'm sure I'd scare myself rigid if I knew, I'm sure some would say that equates to me being a bad mother in some way.

I am glad I am more of the school of reasonable muck, reasonably building tolerances and a healthy immune system than of the school of sterility, the latter seems such a faff regardless of how you feed.

I am even more glad this is all behind me!

you understand that it's one bacteria in particular that this is in aid of, aldiwhore? it's not just any old grot.
however i guess even if the manufacturers could be made to screen for e salakazi (which i always, always spell wrongly) then the latest advice would kill other bacteria too, which are bound to get into a box that has been lying around a kitchen getting opened and shut for a week.