to point out that formula feeding doesn't necessarily require you to be sterilising bottles and scooping out powder in the middle of the night...

[itsakindarabbit]

Keep seeing this on threads which mention ff...how people couldnt be doing with getting up in the night andstsrilising bottles/making up feeds.

I bf and ff but found ff no problem at night - i would take up a carton of ready made formula and a pre sterilised bottle and i could feed without getting out of bed.

And yes, i know ready made formula is expensive and not everyone uses it. But some of us do/did.

When I switched to ff, dh did all the night feeds. I never asked him if it was bothersome

It certainly is an amazing contraption! I mistakenly name checked you breathe - I realise you had googled. Your googling was handy

Well, I'm most disappointed that no one has come and judged my parenting choices now.

Flisspaps I bloody love you. Everything you said, yup. Spot on. You are a voice of sensible reason - I've seen you commenting on other threads, and never seen you give a bit of wrong information!

If anyone takes anything from this thread then make it this - the most important thing is that the water must be 70 degrees or above when the powder hits it 70 degrees is still damned hot. Almost boiling hot.

We make our feeds each day. We wash, and sterilise the bottles. Fill the kettle with fresh tap water and boil it. Then we fill the bottles with the correct amount of water that is hotter than 70 degrees, add the formula, shake, then pop them in cold water with ice in it. Then straight in to main compartment of the fridge. When he wants a feed, then they are warmed to room temp by means of a jug of boiled water.

It takes us 7 minutes for the kettle to boil and the bottle to warm. In that time, I go to the loo, and change his nappy, and I'd do those things whether I was BF or not. So I'd be up out of bed anyway.

I did BF at first and agree with the poster who found it time consuming and inconvenient. That was my personal experience too. Note the word, personal. I would have loved to found it hassle free. As it was, we had no problems at all with the actual feeding, great latch, plentiful supply etc. Except for the hour plus feeds, every 2 hours. With another child, I found it too much. I literally couldn't get out the house when BF. I couldn't do anything at all. Selfish it may be, but I had to put the needs of my whole family first. So I decided to FF after 3 weeks. Never looked back. It has helped that I can share feeds with DP, who is around much more than most dads, as he works part time. We really do share a lot of the care of our baby. And this works for us.

Good for you starting this thread OP, I don't think this is goading in any way. It is addressing the myths that surround FF. Same as threads addressing the myths around BF.

Some people are knobheads, and will always be knobheads. I chose to ignore knobheads. They can go to their own knobhead corner, and be a knobhead with other knobheads.

There should be a special section just for them.

Judgey Hoiky Pants Corner

I forgot to say that THIS is the current advice for making feeds.

Yes it is best to make up fresh, but you can make up feeds the way I described above, and store in the fridge for up to 24 hours.

I forgot to add that formula can be used for up to 2 hours if made from powder, or 1 hour if it is from a ready made carton. Although you do need to check the label of your own formula, as some have different instructions to this.

Please don't make them with cooled boiled water..... PLEASE!

Spread the word! I know HCP's have given people the wrong advice in the past, but it is very important.

Yep, I know people have done it, and babies have been fine, but I wouldn't want anyone to be the one person that did end up with a very sick baby.

TheDetective - I couldn't agree more. FF or BF, whatever suits your needs and circumstances, but if you FF then do it well.

TheDetective thanks

Everything I know I've learned from
MN. Lots of sensible advice on these boards - lots of cobblers too, it's just about knowing which bit to remember and pass on

What is with all the judging of people who FF? Ive never been on the formula/breast feeding boards, that isnt what this was about is it? I FF both mine, intended to BF my first but ive never known so much pain in all my life!! it was awful! I dont see the need to put myself through pain when there is another option! I didnt even try with my DD. Why is it certain people who have BF seem to think they are so much better than FF.
And its not hard to wash up bottles most people have dishwashers! so thats a pretty stupid argument

It's all a pretty stupid argument really. Because people should do what is best for them and their child and their families.

five years ago when DD was a baby, the advice was to make each feed up fresh. however, my midwife said that we could make up 24 hours worth of feeds, and keep them at the back of the fridge and they would be fine. She had to stress that was not the official guidelines. So this is what we did from then on, made up 4-6 bottles at once, then warmed the milk up as and when needed.

DD was absolutely fine being fed this way. MW did however stress that bottles must be kept at the back of the fridge, not in the door as it wasn't cold enough.

BabiesInSanctimoniousSling - If you really don't give a 'shiny shit' what other people think of your opinions, then why are you bothering to voice them?

Ditto, if you really don't give a 'shiny shit', then why post uninformed crap in response to OTHER MOTHERS[???] about the stats re BF probs and how most are 'lying'? Have you truly NO idea how offensive that is? I couldn't BF in spite of trying and trying (transpired I didn't have enough Prolactin), and as already said then had a bout of PNI so vicious my DS could have been left without a Mother - a PNI that was HUGELY worsened by the vile and judgy comments from others (NCT group et al).

So IF you really don't give a shiny shit about other people/their opinions, then prob best to NOT post shit that could send someone already struggling further into the abyss? Just a thought sweetpea - enjoy that with your 'lovely' DH whilst hoping you haven't seriously damaged another Mother tonight.

midastouch yes the pain !!! and it wasn't cracked nipples, it was like a very bad deep bruising of the tissues. I asked the MW for gas and air when I was bf, and they laughed, but I was deadly serious. I tried and tried for weeks, I stood the pain, but the babies wouldn't latch on, I tried and tried, often in tears. I resorted to pumping it and feeding out of a bottle....exhausting

Those cartons are not vegetarian

stoicbutstressed Prolactin ???? never heard of it....how did you know ? I'm off to google.....

I ff my dd2 using these instructions on the aptamil packet

Boil freshly run tap water and leave to cool for 30 mins, unless otherwise indicated on pack. Measure required amount of water (refer to on-pack instructions) into a sterilised bottle. Do not use repeatedly boiled water.

Is this wrong then? Genuine question

sounds perfect to me gingerchick you are killing the any possible bacteria.

Even if you only put the powder in after 30 mins?

Just to add to this - I do think if you're trying to reflect on people's experience with feeding their babies you need to take it in some sort of cultural context.

The ridiculous number of bad experiences and high fall out rate with breastfeeding in the UK is not intrinsic to breastfeeding per se - it's a reflection of the way we do in in this country.

There's no biological reason why UK mums should have such a hard time breastfeeding. It really does have everything to do with our expectations, the care we get in hospital and at home, and - sorry, this is an unpopular opinion - the absolute ubiquity of formula use in very tiny babies, even among mothers who want to breastfeed.

I would say to all mothers who are thinking about how they're going to feed their babies - you don't live in a cultural vacuum. The fact that you live in a society where breastfeeding is largely invisible, (even on hospital postnatal wards or on programmes like OBEM!), and is widely misunderstood, will very probably shape your experience of it and the way you feel about doing it, no matter how well informed about it or determined you think you are.

I honestly think that if you asked someone from a culture where breastfeeding is and always has been taken for granted (many African countries are like this, until fairly recently anyway), they would be staggered at the idea that outright breastfeeding failure is common in healthy women, and that even normal breastfeeding appears to tip loads of women in this country into postnatal depression.

Re: temperature of water - have you seen those special kettles that can boil the water to 70 degrees and then switch off?

here

gingerchick yes (providing the water is 70c after 30 minutes)

We wash, and sterilise the bottles. Fill the kettle with fresh tap water and boil it. Then we fill the bottles with the correct amount of water that is hotter than 70 degrees, add the formula, shake, then pop them in cold water with ice in it. Then straight in to main compartment of the fridge. When he wants a feed, then they are warmed to room temp by means of a jug of boiled water

This is the safest way to do it, don't make up bottles with Luke warm water. The new guidelines about making as you go and formula feeding being treated like a hot potato by health care professionals who won't or can't give advice aave lead to people doing all sorts of crazy shit preparing feeds, especially out and about.

Only one goady fucker on here. If you're so awesome and great at all things go on why would you even look at a thread about formula? Weird.

Excellent post chunderella. I will describe myself as a pro-choice fundamentalist from now on

SHag- I dont think that drawing comparisons with 'tradidional' socieities is very helpful. Your argument is like like saying that women in those countries manage without pain relief in chlidbirth so therefore women in the developed world shouldnt 'need' pain relief either. A woman in a developing country may have no choice but to put up with pain, abcesses, masistis or the sheer terror of a baby that is failing to thrive; in the west we do have a choice thank god.

Not denying that we do not live in a cultural vaccuum and i have no problem at all with the argument that bf should be normalised (and I agree that it really is not seen as simply normal in this country despite all the bf pressure that new mums get put under) However I am pretty sure that my feeding decisions were based on my personal circumstances and the issues that I faced with my child rather than Page 3 , formula advirtising, how I was fed as a child or whatever...

As for people like babiesinslings; well I think that you will find that attitude in a certain kind of person who puts themselves and probabally their babies through a very very tought time in order to 'succeed'' in bf and feels the need to criticise anyone else who has made a different choice in order to big up their 'achievement'

Its about as impressive as holding you hand over a candle flame- an achievement of sorts I suppose in terms of endurance, but a bit pointless really when you consider childrearing in the round.

Recall Prolactin is the hormone involved in 'let-down'/milk production/lactation. Sadly, I only found out I was uber low on that hormone in a blood work-up by by OBGYNE a couple of years later - sadly, as in, it may have helped me at the time to KNOW there was a reason all my efforts weren't working.

Shag (fab name btw) I think you make some really good points re culture/influences/expectations/advertising/the 'norm' etc, but find it really unfortunate that even in your pretty rounded post, you too use the word 'failure' - 'they would be staggered at the idea that outright breastfeeding failure is common in healthy women, and that even normal breastfeeding appears to tip loads of women in this country into postnatal depression.'

It's that sense of personal/maternal 'failure' per se that is so utterly demoralising when something you want and try so very hard at for your baby doesn't work; and then - by a country mile - what may feel an intrinsic personal failure (& at a time when your hormones are going nuts), is tipped into something WAY more brutal by other people's reactions - and I know THAT absolutely worsened my PNI. Ergo, I don't think the phrase 'breastfeeding failure can do anything other than exacerbate that view. Breastfeeding rates maybe? Or for people like me, breastfeeding inability?