About prep time for powdered formula?

[MissMalteser]

Ds is 6 weeks and I am just starting to introduce the odd bottle of formula so we can combination feed, at the minute I am using the pre made bottles but i have been looking into powder and because of the gap between dc's I'm not sure if ive just forgot it was always this complicated?
So each bottle has to be made fresh as required, this includes boiling kettle, making bottle and letting cool, but each bottle also has to be sterilised, once I open my steriliser to get a bottle out the rest are contaminated and need resterilised, so by the time ds starts grunting for a feed and I actually go through the faff of sterilising bottle, boiling water, making bottle and letting it cool enough to drink it could surely take at least 45 minutes each time? Am i missing something? and aibu to think surely there is a more time effective way to do it?

[Aspergallus]

OP is looking for practical advice.

I mixed fed too OP, from a little later.

At home, we used a perfect prep to solve the powder contaminant issue. Didn't stress about briefly opening and closing the microwave steriliser to get bottles out.

Out, took a sterilised bottle in a sealed food bag and a carton of liquid formula. In winter had to carry tommee tippee flask to warm the milk, other times room temp was ok.

[fatandold]

It's news to me about sterilising the actual formula. I accept that some here are a bit vigilante about this. I haven't researched the science on this. My instinct has been to make up fresh and cold, and keep cold as warm milk is a breeding ground. Even cooling the milk and storing means it starts off warm and then gets rewarmed if you feed warm. I may check my tins as DS on prescription formula due to cows milk allergy so will check recommendation just out of interest.

I realise others won't agree but my methods have worked for me. DS never been ill from dodgy milk. He's now nearly two.

[BertieBotts]

It's not about being vigilante, and there isn't much science to it really, just common sense - basically any kind of powder is impossible to sterilise because of how it's made. So first of all it's not sterile when it gets put into the tin, and secondly, once a tin has been opened then it's open to contaminants in the air, bacteria on skin cells which fall off your hands when they're above the container, tiny fibres from clothing which might have touched surfaces (public toilet, door handles, etc), even if you're careful about how you act around an open tin of formula.

To be fair, the vast majority of this kind of contamination if it does happen is likely to be harmless. Babies come into contact with bacteria in the air, from people and surfaces and their immune systems handle it just fine, and most of the time you don't come into contact with things like campylobacter or anything else really nasty, it's more likely to be something like the common cold or rotavirus. And in a tin of dry powder, bacteria can't really grow or multiply anyway so it's not a huge worry at that stage. But if you make that powder up into milk with room temperature or warm water and it happens to be contaminated with something bacterial, then you're actually placing that bacteria into a nice friendly environment where it can immediately start to grow. If you use it straight away then it's not going to have time to grow very much, so a baby with a healthy immune system should be able to deal with it easily, so this probably isn't a very big risk. And likewise, if you cool the milk immediately and keep it at under 5C then it will slow any bacterial growth right down so it should stay at safe/low levels even if some is present. But if you make it at 30C about 20 minutes ahead of a feed and then the feed takes 20-30 minutes then you're pushing the window of the danger zone really.

It only takes one time, and if making up with hot water reduces the risk it just makes sense, really. It might be that you can mitigate the risk with other factors but why not just remove it altogether?

[BertieBotts]

I do see the point about hot milk but you should be flash cooling anyway.

[FastWindow]

The only pp making any sense is the one saying its the powder that needs sterilising, after the bottles are done.

Once you mix the formula with a small amount of boiling water, you can make it up to volume with tap water.

Which is safe for humans.

And who said bottles sterilised in a steriliser are immediately poison once the steriliser is opened? What actually happens is they go all condensated. With clean condensation.

[cheeseandcrackers]

The instructions on my tin of prescription formula States that the water should be cooled to room temperature before adding powder. Adding to boiling water to sterilise the powder makes sense to me but why does the manufacturer not recommend this? Surely they would recommend the safest method if only to protect themselves...

[TowerRavenSeven]

On the advice of our pediatrician we used tap water, on the cooler side (ds liked the cooler formula better) and bottles just washed in the dishwasher. Sometimes I made them fresh and sometimes a pitcher at a time. Super fast and easy!

[ICJump]

Splindide here is a link with some referenced www.nursingnurture.com/breastmilk-antibodies/.
I'm not sure if that look at feeding vs kissing vs cuddling

[rufus5]

Really confused now - I understand what people are saying about using hot water to kill any bacteria, but my milk powder specifically says to use cooled boiled water.

[fatandold]

Checked my formula tin. It says to boil kettle then wait for 30 minutes and then make up bottle.

Like, not 32 mins, not 28 mins...has to be 30 mins! How do they know what temp the water will be in any particular kettle, room temp, other conditions, etc? Nothing about how hot it has to be. And how can you ensure you know 30 mins before baby is hungry? And what about middle of night? Ridiculous

[dementedpixie]

It's wait a maximum of 30 minutes so the water doesn't cool,down too much. You could make up the bottles before 30 minutes too. Some specialist formulas say to use cooler water so you have to risk assess and see whether not using hot water is outweighed by the benefits of the formula itself

[insideout]

With dd (9 years old almost) we made up the bottles in the evening for the following day, but with ds (22months) we used dairy free formula which has to be made up and used as it splits if its left. To be honest its no big deal making up each time, we had a flask for overnight and just rapid cooled the bottle in the sink. Realistically you are looking at about 15 from baby waking to getting a bottle, which for us wasnt a problem.

Also on the formula it says boiled water that has been left for no more than 30 minutes it might surprise you how quickly the water cools to around 70ºC (especially as you can always put the water in the bottle wait 5 minutes and then make up the bottle, cool etc.)

[Caterina99]

I'm in the USA. No recommendations to sterilise or to use hot water to make bottles. Just clean them properly and make with room temp water. I even asked the pediatrician and they said that's fine as DS has no immune problems. Only advice is to discard any bottle after one hour of making it so bacteria doesn't get a chance to grow.

It is very interesting seeing the different advice, but as the US is rather sue happy, there can't have been too many cases of babies getting ill from this method of formula prep.

I agree that preparing formula with 70c water etc is the safest way to do it, but I wonder why this is not advised in every country? Do the formula manufacturers want to make it seem easier so you buy it? Surely that would boost their sales of the more expensive ready to feed formula?