Help! I need to buy special water for formula

[marykat2004]

A friend is coming today from Germany and has asked me to get "babyfood water" for her baby. She says "I don?t know what that?s like in England. Water for grown-ups usually contains too much natrium/sodium for babies, so we have a thing on the bottle saying ?suitable for baby food?, basically meaning it?s low in sodium. "

I did mixed feeding when my DD was a baby, and all I remember is using a Britta filter and boiling the water. I have never seen ?suitable for baby food? on bottled water in the UK.

Can anyone tell me where to get this special "babyfood water"?

Thank you

In France they recommend Evian.

I don't think we have such a thing as our tap water once boiled is perfect for babies.
When we took DS1 away we just looked at the supermarket water and bought the one with the lowest sodium; I vaguely remember some having a little picture of a smiling baby on them, maybe that's what she means??

When we have travelled we have always just brought bottled water. Sorry no help

They dont recommend bottled mineral water for making babies formula in this country as its too high in natural minerals such as Na, K, Ca etc and has more bacteria ppm than tap water. It seems ironic that tap water in the UK is actually safer than bottled mineral water but there are heavy regulations to ensure the quality of drinking water

I am FF my six month old and have never seen bottled water suitable for baby food

I agree boiling water and filtering should be suffice

When DS was small, Boots used to sell a water that was suitable for babies (still needed to be boiled) but he's older now so I haven't looked to see if they still do it.

hm... thanks for quick replies.

This is perhaps why I thought it might be better to wait until a baby is 6 months to travel. They are more robust at 6 months than 4, and you can relax a bit more. The baby coming over is 4 months. Basically, these friends come every year, and this year we were going to go to see them instead, but we simply couldn't afford the tickets. I would have just left it for this year, but they insisted on coming..

It's really not a problem, you just need to educate them about UK tap water or tell them to bring pre-prepared cartons of milk if they prefer. 4 months old are more transportable in some ways as they only need milk not baby food too.

Get some Evian in. You can get hold of it easily, and it is used a lot in France (where I am) for making up formula. You've then got something suitable in for immediate use, and could then suggest boiled tap water once you have educated them!

The instructions on the formula I use say to use cold Evian . It may be that Germany is similar to France in frequently recommending using suitable mineral water to make up bottles. In our supermarket there are a number of brands of mineral water that have a picture of a baby on them and say suitable for babies.

And if your guests just add the powder to the cold mineral water, be very diplomatic because using water above 70 degC may not be the recommended thing on their German formula. I did I highly unscientific survey in my French supermarket, and every brand I looked at either specified cold water (like the one I use) or water between 30-40 degC.

Why can't they use tap water? Just tell them, in the UK everyone uses tap water and 'babyfood water' isn't available so you can't get any for her.

Bizzee for some reason if you do the uk boiled water method on French formula if doesnt make up as well (it's semi curdled) so I ended up using Evian or other brands with baby safe label on in france.

Agree use Evian (it's the sodium content in particular that has to be low afaik ) . Cartons may not be that readily available as I could never find anything but powder for under ones in France.

Also if they do end up using another uk formula or similar there will probably be a 24-48 hour effect on nappies- happened every time we switched from uk to French with dd.

Gigondas, my mum gets in Evian for us when we are staying with her. I have always followed the instructions on our formula packet, so interesting to hear that the UK method doesn't work well on all formulas elsewhere.

I have a theory that they don't really do ready made cartons, especially single feed sized ones, in France because most people just adding the powder to cold water, which isn't a faff when you are out compared to keeping water hot in a flask and then cooling.

hmm... interesting. I bought a new Britta filter (old one broke) and phoned my friend to tell her. She seemed fine about boiling and filtering if that's what they do over here. I don't know what kind of formula they use, I will soon find out as they will be here very soon.

The UK has had better tap water than continental Europe for quite a long time now. I can remember going to Europe in the 80s and being told not to drink tap water anywhere.

I think your theory about no ready made is right Bizzee. So much so that I used to bring French formula home when we were off on hols as much easier when flying to get water to add to formula then bother with cartons.