Bottle night feeds for newborns - how did you do it?

[BellaCB]

Brand new first-time mum here wondering how other people managed their bottle night feeds...

I'm keen to start a 'night' routine as early as possible, by which I mean teaching little one that it is nighttime by not interacting with her, not turning all the lights on etc., hoping to work towards dream feeding when she is a little older.

However I just don't quite understand how this works in terms of getting bottles ready! We're still using cartons as she is only a week old, so I need to either just pour into a bottle or, if its a carton from the fridge, warm through. However she screams the place down the moment she wakes up for food, so if I leave her in the bedroom while I go and make the milk then she will wake DP (or the other way around, once I convince him to do whole nights himself ) - but if I take her with me then she will be stimulated and might continue to wake up properly?

Has anyone got any recommendations? Dor example, can I have room temperature bottles in a bottle bag in the bedroom

Ok, this is what we do...but, ds is 10 weeks and not feeding as frequently as when he was brand new! We make bottles up in advance, even though guidelines say not to blah blah, it's been fine for us. We only make 3 or 4 at a time. So bottles are ready to go and in fridge. When we go up to bed, we take a bottle in a bottle bag thing that keeps it cold for up to 4 hours (we use all tommee tippee stuff) and we have a tommee tippee electric bottle Warmer plugged in and ready to go on bed side table. Is very quick. When we have fed ds bottle and put him down again, one of us will nip down and get another bottle. Repeat until morning! It works for us! Hope this helps. Me and dh also alternate night feeds. Thank god. Xx

If you're using the ready made cartons, can't you take a carton and a separate sterilised bottle to bed with you? Then when she wakes you'll just have to open the carton and pour it into the bottle? That way you'll have a room temp bottle in very little time

I take a flask with the half hour cooled boiled water up the powder and bottles.when he wakes I make up the feed and cool for few mins.

We make ours up in advance, make up abt 5 bottles with just boiled water and put into fridge while still hot. Then when she starts stirring in her sleep pop down and ping in microwave then swirl bottle to distribute hot spots then back up to bed to feed. Feed by either lamp light or moonlight depending on visibility. You can get a really smart bedside bottle heater and cooler from Argos and I think u put a pre-cooled bottle in there with it switched to cold then you flick switch to hot when needed. The don't microwave rule off bottles is due to the risk of hot spots but we only do about 30 secs you just need to make sure u swill well to ensure heat is distributed, don't shake as this creates tiny air bubbles that give baby wind

Congratulations on your newborn!

When DS was younger we did almost the same as others that have already posted.

Once I realised that it was Ok to make bottles in advance (I always used them within 12 hours) we used to make up 3 bottles at 10ish (we tended to feed at approx 10pm, 2 and 6), cool under the cold tap and then pop 2 in the fridge and give the 10pm feed straight away. After the 10pm feed we'd bring the 2am feed up in a bottle "cool" bag into which we put one of those freezer blocks for extra coldnesss (we used an Avent bag). As I got more confident and DS grew older I also started bringing up the 6am feed in the cool bag. The freezer block ensured it stayed cold enough. I never warmed bottles up though - I was lucky that DS was always happy to have them cold or room temperature. I expressed for a while and used to do the same with breastmilk but he always had formula at the 10pm feed in any event.

HTH

I agree with roz1982 suggest that for the time being you bring a carton (room temp) and a sterilised bottle to bed and give that to her when she wakes. Once she is a little older (about 10 weeks) you could pre make the bottle early evening, cool quickly, keep in fridge until bedtime. Then take to bed in a cool bag and use a flask or bottle warmer to warm it up whilst you give her a nice cuddle.

Thanks loads everyone - I think I am over-complicating this and not thinking of the practical solutions! Will take cartons up for a while and then try making up bottles and keeping them cool to be reheated at night.

Thank God others make bottles up in advanced! It was verging on abuse to leave a screaming baby whilst you made a fresh bottle, especially as it takes ages to cool down and by that time the whole village has been woekn at 3am by a screaming one month old!!!

Seriously think they changed guidelines to make it difficult for parents to bottle feed, thus encouraging them to breast feed (despite BFing being notoriously difficult for lots!)

I'm using cartons at night time at the moment but when I feed DS, I then straight away afterwards make up a bottle for the next feed so as not standing around too long.

Mum2be I agree with you, they seem to make it very hard to AF and also they don't give support to BF. as long as the bottles are made with boiling water into sterile bottles they are good for 24 hours, in US and Canada they don't even sterilise its only UK x

I agree about them trying to make it harder to FF. We make ours up too. I do two at a time.

Don't mean to sound all sniffy, but the guidelines were changed for good reasons. The 'old' way -making up lots of bottles of boiled water for 24 hours worth of bottles then adding powder to cold water -was not great and babies did get sick. Most of those were premature or otherwise vulnerable babies, but they did.

The guidelines do include safe ways to make up in advance. And I agree that or cartons are the most sensible ways to work at night. But it's not all a conspiracy .

I would agree with cartons, or 'make up and cool fast' as the best bets. It's adding powder to cold water that really causes the issues.

I would add it's worth teaching your baby to take milk at fridge temperature. Just warm it less each time, until they take it straight from the fridge. I never warmed a bottle once home from hospital. Never did DS any harm.

A suggestion I had from a friends mum which I have done occasionally when going out:I'll have to give an example for say a 4oz bottle- put 2oz of cooled boiled water in bottle and put all 4 scoops of formula in. Take a flask of boiling water to bed and top up with the 2oz of boiling water when required (I found formula usually adds about and oz in volume so you'd top up to 5oz)-voila warm bottle with minimal pissing about.
Sorry I'd that sounded a lot more complicated than it needed to!

Ridiculous to say that the formula guidelines are about making it hard to bottle feed so you will breastfeed! It's about making it safe to bottle feed, so that fewer babies get ill.

Surely most people would agree that safe formula feeding is a good thing?

NoGood - that method doesn't work as the powder has to be added to hot water, not cold. Formula powder isn't sterile and can contain bacteria that needs to be killed with recently boiled water.

We used to make bottles in advance and keep them in the fridge, and warm them up in a bottle warmer for a few minutes when needed. I used to take the baby to the kitchen with me, not turning on the main light, but using the extractor fan light instead (sans extraction, obviously). When he got colicky, the humming of the fridge used to calm him down, as did the extractor fun (with extraction). I got quite good at doing everything with one hand.

*fan even, although it was also fun

We put 1/3 of the amount of water we need in the bottle in advance. So if you are making up a 150ml feed, 50ml ahead of time of cooled boiled water, then seal the bottle. We have a thermos which keeps water at boiling point for 6 hours, so take that up to bed and then make up the bottle when needed and then cool it. We don't add the formula until we made the bottle up to the amount of hot water.

One of us makes up the bottle, whilst the other changes the baby.

HTH