Can I prepare bottles of boiling water in advance for formula?

[Jojonewmaman]

I have just started mixed feeding, expressing some feeds and using formula. I know the advice is very much to prepare bottles as required however I have read that some parents have pre prepared bottles of boiling water, then quickly cooled and stored them in the fridge and added formula when required. Is this safe? And does the powder mix as well in cold water? TIA

Quick question. If I fill a sterilised bottle with boiling water and then put it in the fridge, could I then make up a bottle with 50% freshly boiled water & formula, and then add 50% of the cold water? How long can I keep the water in the fridge for?

And what do you do when you're out for the day and don't have access to freshly boiled water?

DS is fed via gastrostomy and using ketogenic milk that I batch make. Dietcian explained very clearly that you need to use cooled boiled water.... 70 degrees to kill off any bacteria in the powders. Not boiled as will kill if some of the good things in the milk eg ammino acids etc... Thinking about it too....I'm not sure there is even any 'milk' in the milk we make !!!! He doesn't taste it so he's not bothered. My point is...same advice even with a 9 year old tube fed child. We can though make a batch if bottles for the day!

That's how I used to store bottles, with boiled water in the fridge until it was needed then add formula, that was 16 years ago though.......... God I feel old, I'm only 38 honest

The point is advice changes all the time. Years ago you were advised to go to work on an egg. Then they became the devil's spawn and gave everyone high cholesterol. Now they are "safe" again.

The difference is that the comparative healthiness of eggs is a very complex subject to investigate. There's a myriad of variables to account for when conducting an epidemiological study on a commonly eaten food which doesn't produce clear, direct harm.

On the other hand, unless you're buying into the probiotic idea (no clear evidence to support it being helpful) there's nothing that suggests reconstituting at 70C produces a less nutritious product and plenty of evidence which shows that bacteria that have been found in powdered formula are largely destroyed or inactivated by water at this temperature.

Advice changes over time on smoking and car seats too but you never see anyone use that as reason to ignore the most up to date information.

@Mindchilder I don't know I disagree just look at Extended Rear Facing Seats and the amount of parents who say 'I forward faced my children from 9 months and they were fine'......

I don’t know anyone who rear faces past about one!

We rear faced until just shy of 4. Increasing numbers seem to be doing it.

I think over time, more people will do it, but as it stands I don’t know many who did. I didn’t because my son is massive and gets distressed going backwards (he has special needs), so wasn’t able to, but even without this most people turn them round.

Ds is 18 months old and rear faces and will rear him for as long as he fits. Car seats are changing and being developed to accommodate children facing rearwards for longer. I think they go up to 22kg rear facing now.

I think a lot of people really don’t understand how rear facing can save lives. It’s that ‘it won’t happen to us’ ignorance. Road accidents are horrendous and god forbid it happens you’d want to know you’d done everything in your power to keep your child safe. It not a risk I’d take.

No. its the boiled water that needs to hit the formula to make it safe. Best thing i got was a pre prep machine.

If I was bottle feeding a baby now I'd get a perfect prep, no question.

I think it's interesting that a fair number of western countries (Aus, NZ, France, Switzerland were mentioned in this thread) recommend lower temperatures than 70 degrees. I wonder why they've decided not to go along with the WHO recommendations.

The point is advice changes all the time

People say this but it really doesn't. It stays the same for years and years and then something happens to make us realise we are doing it wrong and we change it. Because we've learned something new that is important.

I don't understand why people refuse to listen to new evidence designed to HELP you.

I used to. Prepped bottles with 6 oz boiling water and fridged when cool. Topped with 2 oz boiling water when needed and made up bottles to use immediately.

I’m aware this isn’t the right way to do it but to be frank I don’t recall the box saying the boiling water was because the formula wasn’t sterile, I’d assumed it was because of the water. The HV recommended I did it that way as it was twins so shedloads of bottles!

Diana, it is printed on the side of the tin that the powder isn’t sterile. I don’t know how old your kids are but DS is 8 and it was on the tin when he was a baby.

As I said earlier @LaurieMarlow it is down to risk analysis. They believe the scalding risk is a higher risk than the bacterial contamination of powered formula.

I'm really interested in why MN is pro co-sleeping generally, but against using room temp water for feeding babies. Both are against WHO advice.

No, youve got that wrong. And "MN" isn't anything, its thousands of people with individual opinions. If you see a consensus, there is probably a good reason for that.

They believe the scalding risk is a higher risk than the bacterial contamination of powered formula.

As a piece of risk analysis that strikes me as absolute bonkers. Surely all you need to avoid scalding is a bit of care in the preparation. Am I missing something?

people say this shit when they did it differently which we now know was not the best way to do it, and feel misplaced guilt. So they want you to also do it the wrong way to make themselves feel better. A small group of MN's deliberately wishing ill on babies? On the balance of probabilities? Zilch.

But surely by that same logic @AnEPleaseBob the consensus on here from parents that made up feeds by adding powder to cooled boiled water is that the babies are absolutely fine.

@faerie87 you may find more info here.

@AnEPleaseBob in my case I had dc1 in abroad and didn't speak the language well, I couldn't read the pack instructions but had a British midwife who gave me incorrect information on prepping bottles. First time mum, never thought to check what an 'expert' told me (I obvs now know better)
I'm am not one to agree with those who say 'we did x, y, Z with babies back in the day and they were fine' research is done for a reason and I'm glad we are becoming better informed. my point was, too many posters were being quite brutal and any first time mum is quite overwhelmed, if they have been told that's its OK to prep the formula in a different way and they hadnt enough experience/time/energy to check the advice they have been given then that I think is understandable. Now formula feeding mums are to be given support and proper advice hopefully this wont be an issue anymore.