When did you stop using boiled water to make formula milk?

[zephyrcat]

Or do you always use it until they are on cows milk?

I'm on my 4th baby so you'd think I'd know what I was doing by now! I haven't sterilised since about 3 months. She's 7 months now....

yes they are - babies in Europe have died from Enterobacter sakazakii and salmonella from contaminated formula.

It's a very different issue to sterilising bottles, handwashing, mud and antibacterial soap etc - more akin to serving underdone chicken.

I'm not going to get into a fight about it though - I've posted the guidelines why you should use hot water and how to do it, and people can make their own judgements.

Ive always sterilised bottles and poured cooled boiled water in and left at room temp. When DS2 wants feeding, I put formula in and heat in a jug. Ive been doing this since birth (his not mine- that would be silly) and he's never had any problems.
When I had DS1 (10 1/2 years ago) I used to make up 6 feeds for the day and put them in fridge till needed. He never had any problems either. When I go out I make up a bottle before I go and put it in a cool bag.
Whats wrong with that?

jellybelly have you read the thread?

What's wrong with it is that the water needs to be hot when it's mixed with the powder to kill any bacteria in it.

Best method: make up bottle using use hot water, cool under tap, feed

Second best method: make up bottle using hot water, cool, put in fridge, reheat in warm water later.

and I'm thrilled your ds has never had any problems. However, it's important to know the risks.

8 month old dd is on sma staydown and that HAS to be made with refridgerated water as stated on tin and advised by gp. i make up 20oz jug of formula each night and take a bottle direct from steriliser as required. However I DO use bottled water. Started on prof advice when we travelled abroad (tap water in mainland spain is actually cleaner than ours but has a higher mineral content than bottled water. found that dd's reflux cleared up immediately and any bottles we make with boiled tap water she just brings back up. of course everyone's shocked when i admit that but, hey, whatever works esp with acute reflux! when ds was younger i used to take a flask of boiled water upstairs, and a bottle of cooled boiled water, and i also kept a half-tin of powder. when he woke for a night-feed i just topped up the bottle then added the correct number of scoops. there isn't any need for the wrong dilutation if you add the powder last. it worked so well to have a fresh instant bottle that i used it in the day as well. just re-filled the flask whenever i had a cuppa. and a flask is much cheaper than specific baby bottle warmers and surely not boiling a kettle just to make one bottle is better on your pocket and the environment? i sometimes wonder how all of our mums etc managed to raise us without all the current guidlines. if we believed it all surely we'd not have survived this long

MrsB I think we should step away from this... my head is going to explode

oh I give up

our parents neveer used carseats either but we all do

you have the information, you can weigh up the risks

Why are you getting so irate about this? I was genuinely astounded by the lack of sterility of formula and still gobsmacked that it is not packaged in a sterile environment, it is something that is done routinely for drugs and other manufacturing, why not formula??

I agree with you regarding the youngsters - but at two? I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I have too many other things to lose sleep over tbh. I think we all strive too much for perfection and therefore find ourselves under so much pressure - i can say this now, my DD is two - but a little baby is quite a different matter and the whole formula thing is quite worrying.

BUT there is no point getting upset over it, people will always do what there is to do - breast milk for one is not without risk of passing on infection - where do we draw the line?

Crush, that is a good question actually and that is the reason why i didn't stop sterilising. However it is more of a case that the milk bateria are in milk, as in a food, which gives them lots of opportunity to multiply - this is highly unlikely in my opinion as a biologist - to happen in a dried preparation, it is only when the milk is hydrated that there is a potential for them to multiply to an extent where there could be a problem. So i would never dream of making up milk to use later, never ever done this as there is obvious risk here. I guess this risk would be elevated further if the formula was made up with tepid milk and then left. But if it is used straight away then i really can't see there being a problem. Unless of course the formula was contaminated with something really nasty, which i would hope i would be pretty secure in assuming it isnt. But thats just my opinion, can't be arsed to read up websites that proclaim death and damnation if we don't do xyz - with the best will in the world, just because something is published it doesnt mean it is an absolute fact. Formula isnt sterile, ok, neither are yoghurts, carrots, lettice etc ( we are quite happy just to rinse that under the tap - how did we ever survive ). Yes our parents dindt use car seats but that is a invalid analogy - They probably didn't obsess so much about sterile either, but then again, they didnt have to worry about MRSA and E.Coli H571....makes you wonder really doesn't it

E. sakazakii is really nasty, but you can't be arsed to read about it, so that's fine

I have just read the formula tin - it says to boil the kettle then let it stand for 30 minutes before adding formula - This is a huge discrepancy between what was said on the site and what mothers are being told.

I did read some info on this, and you are right - however it does seem to point to a problem with neonates or immuno compromised babies rather than older healthy babies.

So actually it is quite that health professionals are not stressing the need to use water > to reconstitute formula, it did say however that infection is extremely rare and making formula up with water this hot is also known to destroy nuturients. Still think we should be made more aware of these things, So Mrs Badger i certainly appreciate your point and frustration.

I do think that the sterilisation question is one that can be answered with simple common sense though.

I am another one who has always used bottled water to make up bottles. Here all the bottle brands are marked on the label which is Ok for babies bottles. I have never boiled bottled water and simply serve it at room temp. Realise this is a complete wrong if you do things exactly as it says on the tin but every other mother I know here does exactly the same thing. Most normal thing is the world to see a mum pouring evian into baby's bottle, adding formula and giving straight to the baby. Maybe I, and all the other women I know who do the same thing, have been lucky but I really can not believe in this day and age formula is so dangerous. If it is a problem with bacteria due to dairy content then surely yoghurts have the same problem.

My understanding re formula is that if you're making up from powder the problem is the powder and the temperature you mix it at, not the quality of the water, and bottled water doesn't make sense from that point of view.

But also, I think TheHedgeWitch makes a good point - if you're going to pay for bottled water then you might as well pay for the ready mixed stuff anyway.

I really hate dealing with formula so much, now DS is a year old we're giving him cows milk. It's also nice in this hot weather, I figure if he needs milk when we're out I can buy it fresh.

Obviously that doesn't work if your baby needs special formula because of an intolerance to cows milk.

that is true THW- I used ready mixed until 1 yr and it was amazing until DD developed excema and then changed to Goats milk formula so hence I have to worry about all this crap.

I must say though I do used cooled boiled water to make up feeds as I just always suspected Milk Bacteria was v dangerous, however what Mums are ACTUALLY doing and being told to do is so so different. The HV after birth visit was so crap at explaining the procedure to me that is why I decided to use ready milk as I just didn't understand what she meant (and I am educated to degree level with A level in Biology LOL). It all made me so that BF didn't work out for me really, so much easier. But that is a whole different thread.

I have to say that I am amazed at the powder not being sterile. I have used formula for 4 babies now and have never known this!

From readin the instructions on the tin, the biggest problem I was aware of was not making it to the right consistency - ie not using equivalent water to scoops. Had I known I would have probably used boiled water with every bottle. As it goes I have used mostly room temp water to make bottles past about 3 months (first few months I was pre-preparing bottles)

I also never realised that bottled water comes with a label to say safe for babies - I was always under the impression that bottled water had to high a sodium/mineral content.

You would think that all this - esp the info in MrsBadger's link would be made extremely well known to new parents!

I used to pour the required amount of boiled water into the bottle and leave until it was feed time and then add the formula.

Formula can be mixed with cooled water too.

I thought you were surposed to let the water cool anyway before adding the formula, as you are not getting the full benefit from it being added to boiling hot water.

Hi all

I know this is an old thread... but just out of curiosity...

If we are meant to use water above 70 degrees to prepare formula, how does this fit with the new health scare that BPA is released from plastic when brought into contact with very hot water?

www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/bpa.html#message

use non-BPA bottles

my little en drinks coiled boiled water inbetween milk feeds, when can i give him normal water?

Dishwasher did the trick for me from around 6 months. Didn't steralise after that ..... 2nd child syndrome

MrsBadger, hats off to you for your patience

My DS1 drank 4 day old formula which had been left in his bag and the nursery gave him in error. I went into a blind panic and rushed him to A&E and they told me the worst that would happen would be that he got diarrhea and/or sickness. He had no effects whatsoever. He was 5 months old.
Anyway, in answer to the OP i used boiled water until DS1 went onto cows milk at 12 months.

Have read the thread, and don't think that this has been said already, but sorry if it has. FWIW this is how I understand things.

The risk isn't just because bacteria may be present in the non-sterile milk powder, it's because the high sugar content of milk (lactose) enables a very small number of bacteria to multiply very quickly, whether these bacteria come from the milk or from your hands/worksurface. Bacteria like nothing better than somewhere warm, wet and sweet!!!! Hence why it is important to cool bottles immediately after making up if not using immediately.

Also, with reference to sterilising, once a little person is moving around and putting things in there mouth there is little point in sterilising spoons, bowls etc but bottles should be sterilised if you make them up in advance. If you are making up fresh then they just need to be washed, as the bacteria issue is with storing the milk for a period of time.