Bottles:bit rusty so probably stupid questions..

[catbus]

DC4 is about to be bottle fed (at least some of the time), for many reasons, including my sanity and letting my 3 older DCs feed and help!

DC2 and DC3 were bottle fed at some point, but when I purchased Hipp today, everything (as per bloody usual) instruction wise, has changed. We used to, if I recall, store the bottles with boiled water, in the fridge for up to 24 hours. We used to add the formula to the cold bottles then heat in jug: why is this apparently not a good idea anymore?

Also, I have dragged myself into the new world and am now an owner of a microwave: I have read how you're not supposed to heat babymilk due to hot spots: surely shaking it would sort this potential hazard?? And if you do decide to heat bottles like this, do you have to do it with the lid off??

Sorry to sound so thick: new fangled etc, but cannot be arsed with waiting an eternity for bottles to heat with screaming baby..

Any road, what I need to know is, is my 'old ' method of storing boiled water, then making feeds up from cold and heating, so bad now? And what in the name of Cod am I doing about microwave heating regarding keeping lids on etc? I have heard that liquids can 'carry on' heating even after the beep?? Help an out of touch mother purleeaaassse!

It's now known that some powdered infant formula is contaminated with bacteria that can make babies very ill or even kill them. You need to make it up with water of 70C or over to kill these bacteria.

you can make bottles up in advance (24 hours worth) but you will need to make them up hot and then cool them down in the fridge for storage.

You can also zapp them back to the desired temp in the microwave and yes, just give them a good shake to clear out any hotspots. THe official advice is not to do this but then the official advice is written for morons who cant be trusted to remember to do this. Food does carry on cooking in a microwave after the microwave has stopped as the microwave process causes heat by exciting the molecules of the food. That excitment may take a minute or so to calm down and stop generating heat. THe effect is minimal however. Most bottles will go for 30/45 seconds which isnt really long enough to generate any great contuining heat. In the 11 months we have been FF DD, we have never had a bottle get too hot after a 30/45 second nuke. I do take the lid off though, but keep the teat on the bottle but then i never put anything sealed in a microwave.

Re making bottles up in advance, all you need do is make up the desired quantity using water hotter than 70 degrees. 70 degrees is the temp that 1 liter of water is 30 minutes after boiling allegedly. I say allegedly cause my enquiring mind wanted to know how accurate that was and tested it in my kettle. My results were that the water reached 70 degrees after 10 minutes. Less if i poured it into an open top jug. i think it really depends on your kettle.

THe reason that you want the water hotter than 70 degrees is that the milk powder is not sterile and is infact a bit of a bacteria magnet being so full of lovely proteins and sugars which are very good for your baby but also make a lovely home for the bugs. Water 70 degrees or hotter will kill them so you baby doesnt run the risk of a tummy upset from them.

Once you have made them up you can either cool them rapidly in a sink of cold water (fill the sink with cold water and let the bottles sit in it for 5 minutes) and then put them in the back of the fridge or put them straight into the back of the fridge (depends on the efficency of your fridge, some dont cope with hot things being put in them). The reason you want to cool them quickly is to get them past room temperature and down to about 4 -5 degrees as quickly as possible. At room temp the bacteria can start to regrow.

Take them out of the frige as and when you need them but discard any ones not used within 24 hours.

When you are going out, it is probably eaiser to use a premade carton but if you cant, you can either take hot and cold water with you and make the milk up (dissolve the milk powder in the hot water and then add the cold to make it the desired amount and temp) or take one from the fridge in a thermal bag to keep it cool. whichever works for you.

Hope that helps. All of this as per "the guidelines". I dont have the links to the DoH website which sets it out to hand but will find them if you need them.

:-)

NHS realised new guidelines recently that you may find useful here

Agree with the others about the importance of making up bottles with hot water.

Personally I do microwave bottles - take the lids/teats off, microwave for 20-30sec (depending on how much milk and how powerful your microwave is), shake/swirl to even out hotspots and then leave to stand for a minute or two before testing the temperature and feeding to the baby.

Not realised, released.

can i just hijack a bit? we've no microwave, so i have been doing the following to make a 210ml bottle:
150ml 70 degree water into bottle
add 7 scoops powder, lid on, shake, dissolve powder
when all powder is dissolved, adding a further 60 ml of cooled boiled water from fridge to get bottle to drinking temp.

does this sound reasonable?

perfectly reasonable. i have been known to do half and half hot and cold water when i needed a botle instantly. Dissovle the milk in hot water and then top up with cold to the required temp/volume. the important thing is that milk powder is dissolved in the hot water.

Sounds fine to me since you're measuring out the cold water and not just topping up the bottle.

thanks guys
it's one of those things where you think it's ok, but then worry about your sleep-addled brain....

Thankyou all. Seems really odd though, although I do get the bit about why to make up with hot. Having said that, I find it a bit strange, because in a way, you are re heating milk, which has always been a no no: technically you are heating a feed up twice (if making them up, cooling in water/fridge, then heating up for baby).

As much as I still want to do the bottle thing, I may start doing it last thing at night and see how it goes: purely as have just invested in sterliser, bottles etc! I had completely forgotten how much fannying about there can be with FF; hopefully, it will be worth the while of me doing it though.

No, you don't heat twice, catbus.

You cool down and then give to the baby.

No need to heat up again - why would you do that? Even if you do decide to keep in fridge, there is still no need to warm. Babies are fine taking cold milk, and there is less risk of scalding if you don't heat up, too.

There was a paper in the BMJ a few years ago which detailed the no. of babies brought into A&E with bad scalds, as a result of water being spilled on them (their bottle had been standing in a jug of hot water and it had got knocked over). These A&E specialists argued very strongly for babies to have cold milk.

Reheating milk is a problem because bacteria can breed in warm milk - so warming milk once, letting it cool, then warming it again is a nightmare. However, if you add it to hot water killing the bacteria, then cool it as quickly as possible, there shouldn't be so much opportunity for them to breed.

If you made it with hot water, left it on the side for a few hours to cool, then warmed it up - again, perfect bacteria breeding ground!

What I meant to say was that (I get cooling it down rapidly after making it up, to store) I find it odd, mainly as to how guidelines can change all the time.
What I meant to say was that when I have FF before, the advice was that it was alright to store cooled boiled water in fridge, then make up as needed: I will be using the 'new' way, but was just observing how things change so rapidly, and how using the way I did before, as was the norm, appeared to be fine..

Any road up, all the advice has been very welcome: thanks chaps! It's getting used to a different way of doing things I suppose!

Re: taking milk cold: I have never been able to get any DCs as babies to do this, at fridge temp! They are used to the natural warmth of breastmilk, which is probably why!

Guidelines changed about 5 years ago.

This was the first time they had ever changed, as far as I know :)