Rock hard boobs and cold formula!

[PreferredPlanet]

I've just stopped bf my 10-month old DD and admittedly I did it too abruptly, but she was biting me more and more and I just couldn't get her to stop, got totally fedup with it. I felt pretty fluey and nauseous for one evening/overnight, better since then, but now my breasts are just like rocks and not doing anything! It's been 10 days now and they're still lumpy, hard and really pretty uncomfortable. Any ideas how long this will last?

Also, a relative has expressed horror that I'm not only giving DD her bottles at room temperature, but also making them up with cold tap water. I did have a google and this seems to be ok as far as I can see ... ok, there were various detractors saying the water should be filtered or whatever, but I'm in a good water area and I also have 3 older DC and wanted to give it a try if it would make my life easier! And she's taken to the bottle perfectly happily. Is this ok or am I being really lazy...?

Many people consider (as do I) it a big no-no to make up formula with cold water and goes against current advice (by all means quickly chill it in the fridge if needs be and give it later, cold is fine). Formula itself is not sterile, so should be made with boiled water that has cooled to 70degress. Typically a kettle full of water takes about 30 mins to do this.

Too hot, water can destroy some of the nutrients and make the formula go lumpy. Too cold and it doesn't sterilise the formula. The water itself is not the problem (so doesn't matter in your area), but the formula powder. 70degrees is considered a good optimise though IMO I'd err on the side of too hot.

Some people have experimented to find the mix of boiling water and cool water that results in the right temperature. Alternatively for night feeds, they use cartoons which can be given straight, as they are sterilised.

There are people who have some links, so hopefully they're come and give you some more info.

The current guidelines say that the formula needs to be added to water of 70 degrees or hotter to kill any bacteria that could be present. It generalises that you can boil a kettle and as long as you use the water within 30 minutes it will be hot enough. I actually prefer to boil the kettle and use the water straight away because the MAP bacteria is not even killed at 90-95 degrees.

What I did was put one oz of boiling water in the bottle (used a flask when out and about). Then add how many scoops of powder that you need (DS had 8). Mix it all up and then add 7 oz of cold water (don't add the cold water by eye, measure it out seperately and add it so you know you have exactly the right amount). I don't know if it is allowed but in my head the logic was that the powder is hitting water hotter than 70 degrees so is being sterilised but you also don't have to wait for it to cool down because adding the cold water afterwards means it is the perfect drinking temperature. One oz of water always seemed enough to dissolve the powder properly but if you didn't mind carrying around a bigger flask of boiling water for trips out you could do half boiling and half cold to make sure there was definitely enough.

I am sure this was wrong but i used to boil the kettle and fill up say 4 bottles at a time then just warm it when needed. Worked fine. Never used cold water from the tap but your baby isn't newborn so im guessing not as likely to get problems. I did give my older children tap water tp drink at that age that hadn't been boiled ( without formula added ).

It is a 10 months old baby, if she is like mine she has probably licked shoes, toilets floors and walls... and more.

I use cold bottle water, my tap water is not good, and DD1 had eczema from the UK tap water .

I personally think that doing it straight is fine if it is consume on the spot, and if you leave in a clean environment (clean kitchen, clean bottles,wash hands...) They wouldn't sell formula which has a high content of bacteria, (i.e enough to make you sick straight away).
I agree that it should not be given that way to a newborn or a sick baby/toddler.

When I stopped BF I had to massage a little under the hot shower and hand "express" a little (I could do produced only very little that way) just enough to relive the pressure and avoid blocked ducked, no bras help too...

good luck, hope you feel better soon

Thanks all. Yes, maybe I didn't make it clear - of course if she was younger I would be doing all the water boiling etc - I just think like mamaloco that now, well, the food she's eating isn't sterile, so does it really matter if the milk isn't? But I didn't actually realise there were official guidelines - does anyone have a link? Thanks!

I don't think its so much that the formula isn't sterile - it's that it can contain specific bugs. You wouldn't let your 10 month old lick raw chicken would you?

Powdered formula contains bugs that can only be killed with 70degree water - its a faff but thats the way it is - lal is correct with the chicken analogy.

Until she's one - freshly boil the kettle. Let it cool for about 20 minutes or so, then make up the bottle and sit it in some cold water to cool down - and I cheat as we have an ice machine on our fridge and throw in some ice to the water to speed this up. At 10 months, she'll be on 3 feeds a day, (4 at most) that's not that hard to prepare for, and you can always have some cartons of ready made in case she wakes up in the night for a bottle.

Its fine to give formula at room temperature but it is not ok at any age to make formula using cold water.

Current guidance from WHO states that the water to make the formula must be hotter than 70 degrees C but not boiling in order to reduce the levels of Enterobacter sakazakii and Salmonella bacteria present to safe levels. N.B. not all bacteria will be killed which is why it is important to discard unused formula left at room temperature after 2 hours.

Normal sterilising rules do not apply, it is not safe to stop after 12 months or when they are stuffing other things in their mouth.

You can make the bottles in advance though and keep them in the fridge to save time as long as when they are made the water is above 70C.

See this leaflet for further guidance, page 4 onwards talks about making bottles in advance.

"They wouldn't sell formula which has a high content of bacteria, (i.e enough to make you sick straight away). "

Yes, they do. "They" have sold formula with all sorts of contaminants in it (knowingly). But that's another story .

Formula powder plays host to some really nasty bugs, not because it's there to start with, but because when they find their way there they find it a lovely place to live. Unlike people's shoes, or the floor, which isn't so hospitable.

The point that lal123 makes is the critical one which is that while a crawling baby is (and should be) exposed to a miriad of different bugs as she explores the world, there are limits to what she should be exposed to and clearly noone would think that letting a child eat raw chicken is a good idea. Formula should be treated the same way.

Chicken is safe and nutritious when prepared properly, and so is formula.

Bottled water is not actually sterile and still needs to be boiled.

The WHO guidelines are here The information about the water temperature is on page 21 and 23. It says the water should be no less than 70 degrees. It doesn't say that that water can't be hotter than this.

These guidelines on page 6 say that even when using water hotter than 70 degrees some bacteria still may not be killed. That is why I use boiling water straight out of the kettle.

Just to reiterate what the other posters have said: the guidelines are not there because of the water but because of the formula.

There are bugs living in the powder which can only be killed by hot water (70 degrees +).

The formula packet should have instructions on it about making formula up hot - are you in the UK?

I agree with previous posters that it's important to make the formula hot to kill any bacteria that might be lurking - it's not the same as licking the floor or whatever.

Thanks for all the replies, am taking them on board. But I'm even more confused now! Since reading this, I've been boiling the kettle all day today to make bottles. It says on the box to let the water cool for 30 mins before making the bottle, but I stuck a meat thermometer in there and it was down to 70 degrees after only 5 or 10 mins! So it worries me that using only 50 or 60 degree water after 30 mins could even be a good environment for breeding more bugs! Help! I never realised FF could be so complicated ... Thanks!

Har, I meant . Could do with a gin after all that though!

It's a real minefield and to complicate it more I understand that using boiling water can destroy some nutrients.

The guidelines above should help.

Would it be easier to express for her do you think?

PreferredPlanet an easy way to get water which is 70 degrees is to boil 1 litre of water in a normal kettle and leave it for 30 minutes.

Of course if you have your own thermometer you can experiment with smaller volumes of water and times until you know what will work for you.

Unfortunately the formula companies won't print the proper World Health Organisation guidelines (which have been adopted in this country by Food Standards Agency/Department of Health).

See WHO leaflet.

Don't forget that 70 degrees is much too hot for drinking so after the powder is added you need to rapidly cool the closed bottle ready for drinking - eg in a basin of cold water

nappyaddict - why are you comfortable going against the guidelines and using boiling water? If it is because you feel the wording is unclear then please do some research into this.

Have a look at Irish Guidance Note 22 - there are concerns about using water which is hotter than 70 degrees.

Please consider looking into this. How can you be sure that the nutrients are not being effected. The guidelines are there for a reason. Why do you think they don't just say to use boiling water.

PreferredPlanet How much water did you boil? It would be interesting to know how many degrees the water would be after 30 minutes with a thermometer.

tabouleh I am not going against the guidelines. The WHO guidelines are the ones I go by. They say to use water no less than 70 degrees which means 70 degrees is the minimum temperature but you can use hotter. They actually say some of the bacteria will not be killed at 70 degrees so I am happy to use hotter.

Actually I can see why nappyaddict uses boiling water as a kind of belt and braces approach to make really sure the bacteria is killed.
The WHO guidance itself does not say to cool the water for 30 minutes. The wording states use "boiled water, which has been allowed to cool slightly, but not below 70C" to achive this it states to leave the powder for "no more than 30 minutes" not 30 minutes exactly.

Having taken your advice and read the Irish Guidance (page 17 in particular) it appears the main issue with preparing FF using boling water is degradation to vitamin C. However the guidance then goes on to explainb
that this level of degradation will only cause deficiencies in some low weight babies who are failing to thrive. Babies external to this subset will not suffer from nutrient inadequacy if temperatures greater than 70C are used.

Using your own information I think nappyaddict isn't wrong, although maybe leaing the water to cool for 5 mins or so to make sure its not actually boiling might be better. I think because all kettles cool differently then leaving for a full 30 minutes which is the maximum time actually leaves you at a risk that the water has dipped below 70C.

Of course the best way as stated in the Irish guidance is for everyone to buy a thermometer and run their own tests. I don't know why HVs don't advise this as a option, you only need to run the experiement a couple of times to know what a safe cooling time is so its not that much of a hassle.

I used a thermometer to make sure the temperature was 95 degrees. I chose to do this because I wanted to minimise the degradation of essential nutrients and the presence of MAP bacteria which has been found in formula and in studies was not killed at temperatures over 90 degrees.

My friend who is a nurse says they are told the reason the guidelines say to leave the kettle to cool for 30 minutes is so the water is at the lowest temperature that will still kill enough bacteria but minimise the risk of scalding. She said low birth weight babies have to have the vitamin c supplements even if you only use water at 70 degrees because even by using the lowest temperature you can they still don't get enough vitamin C. On the other hand average birth weight babies still get enough vitamin C even if you were to use boiling water.

Well, guess what? After all the advice yesterday and my renewed commitment to making her bottles with 70 degree water, DD threw up her entire feed this morning in 2 massive projectile vomits!! It was the biggest hurl I'd ever seen in her, or her 3 older siblings (all of whom were BF to a year and didn't have formula). She's fine in herself now, so I don't know what that was all about, but it does seem a teeeeny bit coincidental! FF with cold tap water for a week or so, she's absolutely fine, then one day of following the guidelines to the letter and hey presto! Barf city!!

Sigh, it's such a faff this FF thing. ONly another 7 or 8 weeks to go ... phew.

nappyaddict I didn't measure the water in the kettle that I boiled ... guess I should have.

organiccarrotcake in an ideal world I would've expressed, but with 3 older DC ... just not enough hours in the day, sadly!

Thanks for all the info everyone, I thought I was relatively well informed, but not before yesterday!

tbh depending on how much she is eating I would give her cows milk and bypass all this faffery completely - my dd was only having 2 or 3 bfs a day by then and was eating lots of protein etc.