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.

@mrsneate
@TeaKitten

And here is the full page if you want to read it. You will note at the bottom, updated May 2023.

https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/infantandtoddlernutrition/formula-feeding/infant-formula-preparation-and-storage.html#:~:text=Prepared%20infant%20formula%20can%20spoil,use%20it%20within%2024%20hours.

Don't know why they bothered changing advice then, with my first 2 we made them up quickly cooled them and put them in the fridge . By the time my 3rd came along 12 years ago it was make them when needed.

I'd keep the prep machine if you can op

I've done the make up bottles correctly and store in fridge for two kids (still doing it for one of them) and have had absolutely no issues. I'd really recommend it, it's very handy. Making up a fresh bottle each time is unrealistic!

We’ve seen the exact same problem when it comes to bed sharing.

Midwives banned from talking about it. Tell all mothers they absolutely must not do it and offer no additional information. But mothers do it anyway, because they are humans not robots and for some mothers it’s the only way they get any sleep. Except now we haven’t taught them how to do it safely so the SIDS rate goes up. And all of a sudden it’s panic stations and lullaby trust release advice on safe bed sharing.

All could have been avoided if we simply shared this advice all along. Banning healthcare professionals from educating mothers who make a choice that the powers that be decide isn’t the right choice helps no one.

I swear my job is more about ticking a box and keeping management happy these days than actually supporting mothers as individuals with their own choices, wants and needs. Midwifery is so far away from what it’s supposed to be it’s unreal!

It was thus in 1994 @Madwife123. There have always been mantras and boxes to tick with limited listening.

Nuby rapid cool! Please invest in one it’s the best thing I bought and portable! X

I made up bottles with water and added powder just before feeding them. It was quicker.

Yay an actual expert, rather than randoms! OP it's all about risk and what you're willing to risk. Factor in the age and general health of your baby when doing this.

@sandberry that's shocking! I worked In nicu and we had ready made formula from all the big brands in tiny bottles with separate sterile tests st different flow rates and tiny sterile water bottles, the only time I used powder is to add a thickener to feed.

Keeping made up formula in a communal fridge is appalling practice

I used to boil water, put it in bottles in the fridge, when required, microwave the waterin the bottles, shake, test the temperature and then add milk powder and shake again.

It's actually quite a challenge to cool liquids quickly. Making bottles in advance is risky because as they cool, they incubate bacteria rapidly and it might take an hour to get a bottle cool enough to go in the fridge.
The fridge needs to be left closed while formula is stored there. If you keep opening the door, then the bacteria count goes up.
Then they are reheated to feed baby and left around for another hour or two. By this time they are full of potentially harmful bacteria.

Adding cooled, boiled water that has been stored in 'sterilised' bottles to top up a freshly made 70°+ feed is really the only safe option. It also gets around the issue of feeding bottles too hot, which I've seen with friends who mistakenly think running a feed under the tap will cool it enough.

Or just feed ready-prepared at room temperature.

I agree with previous poster that those prep machines are not safe. There's a lot of hype about them, but no guarantee of safety.

The method you suggest is not safe at all!

The formula is not sterile, it must be added to freshly boiled water, left no longer than 20 minutes, to kill the bacteria in the formula.

Using a small amount of boiled water and topping it up a) is not a sufficient volume of water to kill the bacteria b) does not keep the bacteria in contact with the hot water long enough to kill it all. This is why the perfect prep machine is advised against also.

Cooling quickly and storing in the fridge is far far safer than what you suggest hence WHO, NHS and CDC suggest it.

@madwife123 my babies are grown up now. I made the bottles, adding 5 oz boiling water onto 7oz powder, shaking and storing in the fridge for 24 hours. Added the additional 2oz straight from a boiled kettle at feeding time and a good shake to make sure there were no hotspots. All bottles sterilised.

In the odd emergency I made up a bottle with cold water and warmed it - not often.

May I ask, in a country like the UK with clean water what actual percentage of babies get bacterial poisoning? Or is it a bit like the anti FF mantra of midwives in the mid to late 90s where they would only talk or recommend bf and shunned women for whom it didn't work, refusing any advice or guidance or support to switch. Overall my baby and I suffered far more for 10 weeks than if I,'d been empowered to stop doing something that was agony and making me ill.

It isn’t the water being unclean causing the issue, it’s the formula.

As the formula contains bacteria, including food poisoning bacteria, boiling water is added to kill the bacteria in the formula.

Once that bacteria is killed it can be safely cooled and stored at the back of the fridge for 24 hours. This is what all the expert organisations recommend NHS, WHO and CDC recommend.

The problem with adding some boiling water and topping up with cool water is we don’t know exactly how much boiling water is required to kill all the bacteria. Hence perfect prep machine not recommended. It’s a small risk granted but it can’t be recommended as the risk exists.

Honestly astonished that no one here has suggested what we used to do, which is make up a bottle with boiling water as recommended. Pop the hot bottle in a saucepan and add cold water from the fridge up to about 2/3rds of the way up the bottle. If you're in a hurry, add some ice cubes to the water. Cools it down in a couple of minutes tops.

Well perhaps I won't drive to work today @Madwife123 because there's a small risk that I might have an accident. Similarly ds shouldn't have been allowed to play rugby and dd shouldn't be allowed to teach at a specialist school for neuro diverse children because she's at more than a small risk of physical harm everyday.

More women up to the 18th Century died from breast feeding related sepsis than from children fever. I suffered severe infective mastitis and a breadt abscess (bacterial) arising from breast feeding which evidently, according to midwives and the hv was entirely safe. It wasn't for me and without ABs probably DS and I would have died.

I do wish midwives and hv's were able to properly analyse evidence based research and the related risks rather than swallow whole what they are told is this week's mantra. Information is usually conveyed in a much more proportionate way by appropriately qualified Dr's in my opinion, who have read the research and are able to discuss the proportionate, statistically based pros and cons.

It's been 12 years since I bottle fed a baby, and back then I was advised to make all 6 bottles before bed, and put in the back of the fridge. Then reheat as needed the next day.

I have read that "experts" advise against the perfect prep machine too.

Who the fuck knows, advice changes every generation. All I can say is, I did the above and have never had a sicky baby and have 3 children with excellent immune systems (unlike me who catches everything going)

Have you missed my MULTIPLE posts where I literally say that banning midwives discussing formula feeding has led to this and that not educating women regarding the choices THEY make not the choices the government makes doesn’t help anyone?

I am currently making up 3 bottles at a time a few times a day as per advice.

There’s always new advice coming up and different advice in different countries. Remember the US formula scandal the other year? They didn’t even use boiling water when making up feeds!

As far as I’ve read the prep machines aren’t recommended by NHS anyway, so if they’re recommending continuing with that, their advice is off too anyway.

Its odd advice really as my mother worked on a childrens ward for 25 years until only 1 year ago and I know for a fact they make up bottles and store them in the fridge.

Personally it was a method I used and I was fine with that.

In the US they don't even use boiling water to make formula and they don't sterilise bottles.

Overall I personally think a clean sterile bottle, made with boiling water and stored properly in the fridge for a short period of time is not a large risk. Particularly as you can store an opened premade formula bottle in the fridge for 24 hours.

They actually do do this for some of the more specialist formulas in hospital. They will use premade where possible but my cardiac baby needed a modified fat formula, only one brand available, doesn’t come premade. They made up 24 hours and stored it and the dietician gave me the recipe to make 24 hours worth and store at home.

I don't think you understood. I was advocating making up the feed with maybe three quarters very hot water, to kill bacteria, then topping up to proper dilution with cold, boiled water from sterilised bottles, to make it a suitable temperature to drink.

Of course the free stuff that comes full of antibacterial factors, at perfect temperature is so much simpler

I make bottles every morning with freshly boiled water and stick them in the fridge. Microwave for 30 seconds when it's time for a feed, and shake well for 30 seconds to get rid of "hot spots". Been doing it since DS was 2 months old. He's nearly 8 months now and thriving. We don't have space for a Perfect Prep machine and I don't have the time with a 3yo and a baby to faff about and make a bottle and let it cool every 3 hours.

Same here. Never had any issues. Mine are all healthy twenty somethings now.

I'd have ignored anyone telling me to do it differently too.