to go against HV & midwife's advice

[Boymamabee22]

Combo feeding but I've been ff more this past week.

May have to move into temp accommodation so thinking of selling my perfect prep machine due to lack of space, etc.

Been told I shouldn't make bottles in advance and store them in the fridge (like I did with my first). Can somebody tell me why? Obviously I'll cool the bottles before storing them and I always make sure the fridge is clean.

Waiting 20 minutes for the kettle to cool and then another 20 mins for the milk to cool is a faff and v difficult with a screaming baby.

I'm totally out of touch as my kids are older but is there any reason you cant just put some boiling water into the bottle with the powder and top of with cooled pre boiled water (that you keep in the fridge)

The reason is the risk of infection as bacteria can grow and multiply. We have had lots of poorly babies whose milk has not been prepped or made correctly.

But the advice and guidance is up to you to do as you wish with. You just won’t be able to say “no one told me” as it will be documented that they did.

is there any support where you live to maybe get breastfeeding back on track (understand if it is just something you don’t wish to carry on doing) but there is help out there if you did want to carry on

My kids are all grown up as well and we used to make 6 bottles at a time and just keep in the fridge, but what hankunamata says is a good idea

It’s because there is now evidence that there could be bacteria in the formula powder which starts growing once the water is added. Even in the fridge the bacteria could multiply.

Keep boiled water in a sterilised bottle in the fridge. When a feed is wanted put half the water in from the boiled kettle and half from the fridge. It's instant. Keep changing the stored cooled water regularly.

With a bit of experimentation you can replicate what the prep machine does, put boiling water into bottles, seal them and chill them.

Take new bottle, put powder and boiling water in, give it a shake, top up with the water from a bottle in the fridge, give it a shake, check temperature. Use the now empty bottle for the next feed etc.

With some experimentation you know the volumes of hot and cold to make it the right temperature. The important bit is putting boiling water onto the powder to sterilise it.

There's a risk of bacteria as pp have mentioned. No worse than your perfect prep though, as it doesn't heat to the necessary temps to kill the bad bacteria, so that's why they are also not recommended. The risk is low but severity can be high in terms of issues if it does go wrong... it's your call. I did a manual perfect prep i.e. what @Hankunamatata said.

Honestly? I wouldn’t get rid of the perfect prep!
But if you really need to and want to save time making bottles , keep some cooled boiled water next to the kettle.

Apologies if this sounds condescending but I’d hate it to be read by anyone and misunderstood.

Half fill the bottle with freshly boiled water (to kill bacteria in the milk) and add all the powdered formula milk, shake to mix.
Then, really importantly, measure out the exact amount of cooled water in a jug / other bottle so it’s the correct mix and then add it to the bottle; it’ll be perfect drinking temperature.

I believe you can still store formula in the back of the fridge for 24hours ; but ‘best practice’ advice is to make fresh.
I presume because you run the risk of losing track of the freshest bottles and risk ‘wasting’ the feed if the fridge is too cold and it freezes etc

Hope the move isn’t too stressful

We boil the kettle, cool, and then transfer the water to a thermos flask. It will be OK for a couple of hours. That way the bottle can be made and cooled in cold water in about 5 minutes.

Oh, and change the cooled boiled water every 24 hours x

The milk seperates and tastes wrank

This DIL has recently had a baby and it's now recommended that there's a 2 hour window for little one to drink the feed once made up.

When cooling the bottle add ice cubes to the jug/mug you have the bottle helps with the cooling of the bottle.

Perfect Prep aren't recommended by experts either.

Buy yourself a Nuby Rapid Cool and make as you need. They’re about £30 and they’re a game changer imo. The instructions say to use it to cool the whole feed e.g. make up a 5 ounce bottle including formula in the vessel itself, but I wouldn’t as you then need to wash and sterilise after every feed. What a lot of people do (including me), is pour the amount of water you need into a clean bottle, then tip around half out into the nuby, then add formula powder into the half of the boiling water left in the bottle. Then add your cooled water from the nuby in. Basically like creating your own hotshot, like the prep machine does.
hope this makes sense but if not there are videos on instagram and tik tok!

Sorry, forgot to add incase you don’t know, but you can use freshly boiled water in the nuby so literally just boil the kettle and make up. Takes around 4 minutes for the water to cool in the nuby.

The WHO says that it is the 2nd preferable option (1st is making fresh each time of course) which is good enough for me and good enough for my son's nursery.

WHO says it's fine to store in the fridge. They are far more knowledgeable than the nhs.

I second the nuby rapid cool flask, cools the boiling water in a minute or so depending in how much you put in. So useful and easy to store/doesn't take up much room.

I did it! This was 2019/2020 and although it was against advice then I was honest with the hv and they had no problem with it (off the record). I made up the formula with boiling water initially to kill the bacteria, cooled it quickly and then stored it in the back of the fridge for 24 hrs. So much easier to quickly heat a bottle than faff around making a fresh one with a screaming baby. I used to make up a batch of 6 of an evening and they would last to the following evening so there was only 1 bottle making/sterilising session a day. I'm not suggesting you do this necessarily as its not recommended but anecdotally ds was never sick even once the entire time he was on formula!

Who say making fresh correctly with right ratio of powder to water and cooling then refrigeration is preferable to trying to recreate what a prep does.

No, they say it’s best to make feeds up fresh and discard within two hours just like the NHS does. But that if necessary they can be stored in the fridge.

OP I’d probably keep the perfect prep, it just seems worth the space it takes up.

I was also surprised at this. My youngest DGC was 10, now there's a baby 8 months,and DD said there's now evidence that storage of bottles 24 hours is dangerous, they have to be made fresh

How old is your baby? If more than three months, not born prematurely, does not have any immune issues, the risks are lower.

Otherwise, you need to boil, leave to cool for 5 minutes, add to formula (hotter will harm the nutrients in the milk, cooler and will not kill the most dangerous bacteria).. then add cooled boiled water.

Hot water to sterilise the milk powder then cold water to cool it to drinking temp. Get your ratios right and it takes 5 mins.

Alternative is buying cartons for night feeds and pooping in microwave. Shaking to avoid hot spots obviously