AIBU to not follow new guidelines?

[LittleSugaPlum]

Im pregnant with first baby and im almost 33 weeks.
I plan to bottle feed and have brought all the equipment already.

When i was a nursery nurse, around 5 years ago, it was common to "bulk make bottles" and store them in the fridge for upto 24hours.

When i mentioned to my midwife that i was bottlefeeding, she mentioned that the new guidelines were to make up a feed when needed and its not recommended to "bulk make feeds"

Have people honestly stopped doing this? Do people actually only make one feed at a time?

Im seriously considering bulk making, if it was fine for years, whats the difference now?

AIBU to not follow the new guidelines?

I just want to point out that there are (at time of writing this) 146 posts and of them there are very few are BF "activists" OR posts actually "bashing" the OP on her decision.

I think it is harsh to label those pointing out the BF benefits and support (or sometimes lack of it) as pushing BF and making OP feel guilty; likewise, it is unfair and unkind not to respect the OP's decision on how she chooses to feed her child.

I want people to know that there will be 100's, maybe even 1000's of people who haven't commented but are reading this thread - perhaps they haven't commented because they agree with the general consensus - it is the OP's choice how to feed her child.

I hope the thread has been helpful to everyone reading (not just the OP) on safe ways to make up formula but also the risks involved of not correctly making it up.

I agree with one recent poster who advised if you have chosen to FF, try and give colostrum for the first couple of days as it has so much goodness in it, and will help clear out their gut from the birth.

All the best OP!

Why 70 degree water is added to the powder isn't explained. Once you know that, the rest is just extra careful food hygiene/safety as babies don't have stomachs/immune systems as tough as ours.

"But as you say - making up bottles in bulk is much more convenient so perhaps you will feel this is a risk worth taking. Lots of other people feel the same."

Including the WHO, who advise to do this when making feeds from scratch is not practicable. Here.

My daughters also cluster fed and I fed them on demand so 2-3 bottles prepared in advance was the best way for me.

Thank you for that link, tethers end.

OP - can I ask you a personal question? Very few women on MN talk about planning not to breastfeed so I haven't put this question to anyone else.

When you have given birth the baby is often put on your body against your chest, face down. Often they'll try to nuzzle and lick at your breast. We talk about women 'breastfeeding' but actually it's the baby who breastfeeds. Mums just allow access so baby can get on and do what their instinct tells them to.

Will you keep your top on so that your baby can't latch on (except to a mouthful of sweaty nighty!).

Those of you who have ff from birth - did you still do lots of skin to skin? Did you let your baby do the nuzzling and licking thing?

Well said northernlurker

Shangmundfreud Yup I did lots of skin to skin with mine.

Thethersend - you are right that when it comes to ff the safest way is not practicable for most people.

It's one of the drawbacks of ff.

I did what Lougle suggested once we had to introduce formula top-ups. I was still BFing and when DS2's tongue tie was first snipped he was having top-ups after every feed so I would have gone demented if I hadn't figured out a quick way to do it. 3oz of hot water, add 7oz of formula, shake, measure 4 oz of cold in another bottle, add cold and shake again. done!

Did baby try to nuzzle and lick or try to feed?

"Im seriously considering bulk making, if it was fine for years, whats the difference now"

it WASN'T fine for years for many, many got sick and now we know why, that's why the guidelines have changed. The bacteria haven't suddenly changed. It was just as not fine then as it is now but mums werent lucky enough to know about it!

Wish somebody had told DS it was natural to feed. Took us weeks of heartache to get him to latch on.

Is the instinctive nuzzling the same as the rush of love? Because I didn't get that, either.

None of mine tried to nuzzle or lick my breasts, even the two I tried to bf weren't at all interested. Probably one of the reasons I found it so difficult.

Actually when my milk came in after I lost ds4 in pg ds3 suddenly started showing interest, because I did wonder if I should try bf him again ( i expressed until he was nearly 12 weeks) He was 6.5 months old at the time

Shagmund, I'd be interested to know your take on Australian/NZ guidelines which advise making up with cooled boiled water as they have concluded that the risk of scalding babies with insufficiently cooled feeds outweighs the risk of bugs in non-sterile formula?

That sounds snarky, I don't mean it to!

Actually if you keep the boiled water in a flask , I don't think it's any less practical than getting an allready made one out the fridge and heating it. It certainly didn't take any more time

Shagmundfreud - Skin to skin doesn't require a baby to be anywhere near your nipples to be effective. So what if baby nuzzles your neck or the top of your breast? Just coz OP and others don't plan to breastfeed doesn't mean they don't plan skin to skin.

My oh never had milk (oddly for a bloke). Didn't stop him performing skin to kin with dd.

Dd1 didn't, I fed dd2 for about 5 mins or so, (there was difficulty in delivering the placenta with her and the midwife felt it would help) and I can't remember with dd3. Her whole delivery was a bit surreal - she was a day early and my children are historically 10 days late so it was all a bit of a rush.

Elcs here, no nuzzling as was out of my tree. Although I may have nuzzled the anaesthetist at one point

I FF'ed all mine from birth. I gave birth in a nightie and they were handed to me in a towel, so we didn't have immediate skin to skin, but we certainly did in their first few days/weeks. None of them ever nuzzled/licked/tried to feed, except for one hilarious time that DS2 attempted to latch onto XP

At least I'd have been doing it right these last couple of weeks if I was Australian, I guess!

Tethersend - I have read research showing that a really large proportion of bottle feeds are made up wrongly and that babies are regularly bought to hospital with scalds caused by microwaving or insufficiently cooled bottles.

Those first few weeks are worrying enough as it is. If you can get baby breastfeeding well then it stops being something you have to plan, be careful about, or actually have to think about at all. For me this was crucial - I just know I would be one of those women who would perpetually lose count of how many scoops I'd put in, or how long a bottle had been out the fridge for, or whether the dishcloth I'd used to clean the side with before preparing the feed was the same one I'd just used to wipe up raw chicken juices off the work top. Breastfeeding was the only really safe way to feed for a knackered klutz like I was the first few weeks.

OP sounds far more organised than me though!

Interesting that Australia point.

I tried the fresh one night was horrific! Used cartons mostly.

They sell big litre bottles now apparently op that keep in the fridge like normal milk.

make the bottles up with 70 deg water as recomended, then cool quickly under cold running water and then refrigerate is fine, the who and the nhs say this is fine for when you cant make up fresh :)

or i used to boil kettle, measure out half or 1/3 of a feed into a sterilised bottle and leave to cool for later. then at feed time i would use 70 deg water the other half or 2/3 etc mix ALL the powder into the hot water, make sure it mixed properly and then top it up with the pre-measured but cooled water, mix well and you ahve a feed that is the right temp roughly, but you need to MEASURE both amounts of water out.

so 7oz feed, i would put 4oz of boiled water in a sterilised bottle and leave to cool. at feed time i would then put 3oz of HOT water in a bottle, mix ALL 7 scoops of powder, then add the 4oz of now cool water. make sure you shake it and its mixed properly and you should have a feed of roughly drinking temp :)

you may need to experiment slightly with quantities so that you end up with a bottle that is drinking temperature :)

interesting that the advice is so different in australia, i would like to hear a bit more about why. yes the risk is low, but for one the risk could be death, tho i guess a baby burning its mouth and possibly its airway on too hot milk could also cause death? both are horrible :(

My hands got chapped from all the washing. Sma do little disposable bottles now. Got to be tempting that.

You seen them op?