To make formula up in advance and store it in the fridge?

[novaissuper]

Stores in the fridge for no more than 24 hours and heated up with a bottle warmer. What do you think?

People also went in cars without carseats or seatbelts for years and were fine - shall we stop with them too?

Have always done this. Bottles made up in the morning and stored in the fridge for the whole day.

As far as I understood...

2 hours discard time is for bottles at room temp, not bottles stored in the fridge. Bottles that have been started but not finished should be thrown after 2 hour.

Also boiling water (or water recently boiled - no more than half an hour later) is added to kill bacteria in the formula. Obviously you need to sterilise the bottle and the teat as well.

@Vetyveriohohoh

Why are you asking other than to be goady? You clearly know it’s against advice, it’s a risk

I'm definitely not trying to be goady. I am genuinely interested in how other people do it. My baby is only four weeks and I am still learning. I didn't know it was against the advice either, I think it depends on where you get your guidance...

Guidelines change due to research. So although many pp said they did this & their kids are fine, there’s evidence to say that it isn’t 100% therefore guidance has changed. They used to feed babies at 2/3 months old too & put baby rice in “hungry babies” bottles

I used to pour 3/4of the water I needed into 6 sterilised bottles and pop them in the fridge. Then all I needed to do was add the last 1/4 of boiling, add the powder and shake. Perfect temperature every time. But now they've changed the guidelines to say the powder must be added to boiling water, I'd probably have a large sterilised bottle of cooled boiled water in the fridge and add the cold after the hot and the powder

Thats what the midwives told me to do 30 years ago with formula milk, have they changed the shelf life made up since then? If so did they change all the different brands?

@ismiseeire

I do remember the first time I made up the bottles. The entire house had to be sterilised. Nothing was safe. Everything bleached. Toilets, stairs, kitchen, counter tops, table, dining room, bedrooms, floors, cupboards, chairs, legs of table and chairs, windows inside and out , mirrors polished etc. It was going to be a fucking sterile environment if my child was going to have a chance to survive.

THEN the new bottles were washed in hot soapy water and after about 5 minutes per bottle, they were reverently transferred to the steriliser. Kettle had of course been boiled in preparation for this astronomically important chemical experiment. Timer was set to 20 minutes precisely so that the boiled water could cool sufficiently. The newly sterilised bottles were laid out and I went to the scooping powder scoops into the bottles phase. Given the risk to life of me losing count, two independent auditors were present to verify my count of scoops into each bottle. Then of course, the transfer of water into the bottle began. I was tremoring at this point with the sheer gravity of this event.

I knew a LOT about solutions. The miniscus had to be eyed up in full light, at eye-level of course, lest I perhaps over dilute or underdilute.

Bottles then had to cool further before being transferred to the bottom shelf of the entirely bleached, rinsed and then sterilised fridge.

I relaxed after a while.

🤣😂🤣😂

I think the advice then changed and that wasn’t considered ok but my kids and many others were fine.

They were fine because you were lucky enough not to come across a (extremely rare) batch of contaminated formula. If you did have a bad tin, making it up with room temperature water would have made your kids very ill.

I did this. We had to switch fully to formula when ds was about 8 weeks. It was against guidelines but when I tried to do it the official way it seemed impossible as you were supposed to make every feed up fresh when required with hot water and then leave 30 minutes to cool down- did not work for me with a screaming baby! Ds suffered no ill effects and is a very healthy 7 year old now.

It’s not guidelines now but I made up 6 bottles at a time and left them in the fridge. Can’t imagine boiling a kettle etc while my baby was waiting

I had a seed tray (new for the purpose) about 2 inches deep which I used to fill with cold water and stand my newly made bottles in it to cool quickly before they went into the fridge.
Once you get your 'conveyor belt' sorted, you can do your bottles quite quickly and safely.
Wipe down your surfaces. Wash your hands. Make sure your scoop is clean and dry. Have clean kitchen roll around.
Steriliser (or steam steriliser), kettle and formula, seed tray for cooling, fridge.

I used to make up a day's worth and put them in the fridge. We used ready to pour at night. He always had ot room temperature too! Poor thing! He is 6 now though so survived!

Mr Tommy Tippee must have been rubbing his hands with glee with all the sales of his £££ perfect prep machine thanks to the guidelines

We had to do this as we had to add Colief to her bottles to break down the lactose and it took 4 hours minimum to work I think. We never had any issues (I am not sure about storing in the door - I think we did do that too). I know they say not to do this but the colief packaging said to do it and there wasn't any other way

@ismiseeire

YouCantBeSadHoldingACupcake Utterly incorrect. You don't make a bottle up with boiling water lol. You cool it a bit, then make the bottle up. The sterilisation comes from cleaning and sterilising the bottles!

That's sterilising the bottle. The boiling water (or water boiled in the last half hour max) is to sterilise the milk powder, as it is not sterile.

@ismiseeire

I can't believe that people think that they are 'sterilising' the milk with boiling water each time they make up a bottle!

You are. That's the point.

@zaffa

You are not supposed to use boiling water to make formula.

I used to make up bottles in advance andput them in the fridge AND I used to have a little plastic thing with compartments of milk powder and add non-boiling water if we were out for the day.

I don't know how my son survived...or how he didn't have stomach bugs.

Goodness knows why the advice changes all the time. I also weaned at 4 months and now it's 6. I suppose in another 15 years or so it will be back to 4 again.

I had a separate kettle for my son's bottles as you are not supposed to reboil the water. Do people still do that?

[quote Merryoldgoat]@zaffa

You are not supposed to use boiling water to make formula.[/quote]
No I suppose it's not actually boiling at th point of using it as that's not really how kettles work, is it? It's water that has boiled in the previous half hour max, which I suppose covers water that has just boiled to water that boiled 29 minutes ago (leaving you one minute to add in the formula....)

You’re not suppose to do that

Isn’t the advantage of formula feeding that it’s much easier to get the babies into a routine so you just get the kettle boiled well in advance and let it cool! I wouldn’t risk going against guidance it’s there for a reason!!

@poppycat10

I had a separate kettle for my son's bottles as you are not supposed to reboil the water. Do people still do that?

Yes that was a rule we followed too. We emptied the kettle and refilled every time we made a bottle

@Vanillaradio. my d2 wouldn't drink hot bottles, she liked them cold/room temperature, so thats what she got. if I had to make a bottle as she wanted them - they had to be dunked in an ice bath to cool them

When baby was born and right up until he was 4 months, we made EVERY feed fresh as thought we had to. Total pain in the arse making up a boiling bottle and having to cool it while baby cried.. then was told we didn't need to do that, so made up 24hrs worth in advance, kept in fridge and used bottle warmer for a few mins. Two healthy lads!

We used a Perfect Prep machine or the bottles of ready mixed stuff once breastfeeding went out the window. I see the temptation with making bottles ahead, and I know loads of people do, but someone we know got told off by a health visitor for doing it.