FF query- product that heats/cools boiled water quickly

[FlangelinaBallerina]

Background- DD is 6 days old and is ff on Aptamil. I had planned to bf but have now definitely changed my mind, and she's now on Aptamil ready made bottles and cartons. Because I hadn't planned to ff I'm not very well up on all the information, but soon we'll be looking to make up feeds from scratch.

So I get that the water has to be boiled, cooled to 70 degrees celcius then the feed can be mixed. DH bought a warmer that heats bottles quickly, and I thought we'd be able to use this to heat/cool boiled water to exactly 70 degrees for mixing the food. I thought this would mean we wouldn't have to mix everything up half an hour in advance, but could just boil it, then cool and mix straight away, then feed. DD isn't that regular in her feeding yet so we don't necessarily know when she's half an hour away from wanting a bottle. However, the device DH bought only heats up to 30 degrees celcius so it won't be enough. Is there a product we can buy that heats/cools to 70 degrees celcius? Or what do other people do- surely everyone else doesn't know exactly when their baby will be hungry with half an hour's warning? I know we can't mix the feeds up in advance. Would be grateful for any advice- the cartons are pretty expensive. Unless DD starts crapping money, of course.

I think there is a kettle you can buy which heats to 70 deg. I'm bf so prob not much help but I'm sure I've heard of it! Good luck

Hello,

Couple of ideas. 6 days old ff every 4 hours with a 3oz feed. Don't feed on demand, you'll be up all night!!

Boil the kettle, leave the water in the fridge with the lid on to cool. Tip out 1 oz of cooled boiled water and refill with 1oz fresh boiled water, to make a 3oz bottle. Add formula, shake, test the temp on the inside of your wrist. Feed.

For a 4 oz feed, replace 1oz again.
For 5oz feed, replace 1.5oz.
6oz= 2oz
7oz = 2.5 oz
8 oz = 3 oz

HTH

Current guidelines state that where it is not practical to make a feed from scratch every time (ie ever), you should mix bottles with boiled water cooled to 70degrees (about half an hour after kettle has boiled), cool rapidly and store in the back of the fridge for up to 24 hours, warming each feed with the bottle warmer.

We have a mini fridge and a bottle warmer in the bedroom.

70 degrees is obviously far too hot for any baby to drink, which is why bottle warmers don't heat bottles to high temperatures.

You could do it as bearandcub suggests, just be aware that that method does not comply with UK guidelines. It is easier though.

Bosch make a kettle that heats to 70 deg c.

You can make up bottle with half hot water - shake to dissolve powder - and then top up with cold to get the right temperature. Obviously you have to ensure that the hot water is hot enough, and that the overall volume of water correct. Guidance is to put the water in first and add powder so you would be doing things the other way around.

Demand-feeding is recommended for bottle-fed as well as breastfed babies. There is some evidence it's better for their health. Also check out paced bottle feeding. It's a methhod of ensuring your bottle-fed baby doesn't overeat.

I make up feeds and fridge for max 12 hours. I use cartons when out or at night x

"You can make up bottle with half hot water - shake to dissolve powder - and then top up with cold to get the right temperature."

If you do this, you must measure out the correct amount of water without the powder, as topping it up to say, 6oz will mean that the formula will be thicker than if you had measured out 6oz of water and added 6 scoops of powder as per instructions IYSWIM.

So put 6 scoops of powder into 2oz of hot water and then measure out 4oz of cooled boiled water and add.

Personally I make up bottles in advance and store them in the fridge for up to 12 hours. I would usually take them out if I'm going on a short trip and DS will need a feed, if it's a longer trip I would buy the ready made cartons so I don't have to worry about the temp of the bottles.

Once you get into a routine with the sterilising and making up bottles it is quite straight forward to formula feed. I found it all a bit overwhelming when I had to figure out how to use my steriliser as I had also planned to breastfeed.

Please feed to your baby's cues, ignore bearandcub's advice to schedule to every 4 hours

congratulations on the birth of your baby, awwww give her head a sniff for me

I make the bottles up in advance (but discard after 24hrs). If for some reason I have been disorganised then I will boil the kettle and fill the bottle with the appropriate amount of water. The pouring into the bottle lowers the temperature a bit. Then I put the top on the bottle and shove it under the cold tap for a minute or two. Then I add the powder once it's a bit cooler. This isn't very precise but the baby is hungry!

We kept a thermos flask full of pre-boiled (and slightly cooled) water and made every bottle up fresh for DS. Then made the bottle up and stood it in a jug of cold water for a few mins to cool it quickly. TBH, if we didn't make the bottle up fresh, he'd always be sick. Most of the other mums were using the one kettle a day and microwave the cooled water route - we tried but DS brought it all back again!!

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. We'd been thinking of mixing fresh boiled water with cooled boiled water done at the start of the day and kept in the fridge in a sterile container. Basically like bearandcub's suggestion. I hadn't realised this was against guidelines- why would that be? Presumably everything would be sterile still, and we'd use a thermometer to check the temperature of the mixed water.

It's interesting that there are guidelines for what to do if you're not going to follow the guidelines ie how to do the fridge feeds method. Is this safer than mixing fresh boiled water with cooled and fridged boiled water? It's just very overwhelming- glad to hear I'm not the only one who feels this way CherryBlossom!

The basic thing to bear in mind is the powder needs to hit hot water- at least 70 deg. Very very rarely powdered formula can be contaminated with really nasty bugs. By following this method, bugs are less likely to get a hold. Such infections can be really serious for young babies.

Hello again Flangelina,

(Can I call you Flange...? )

Just to clarify my post - your baby will tell you when she's hungry and a "routine" (used loosely) will quickly follow. Rather than pick a time and work from there but I presumed that you would do this for your DD anyway as your OP said you were trying to reduce the 30 minute wait.

Also I meant to put that you can give cooled boiled water between feeds in hot weather to help with hydration.

Apologies if I was too flippant for some re feeding to baby's clues. I was merely trying to suggest how to speed up the process. However, I will say from painful and recent experience that on demand ff is a) exhausting, as my DS wanted to be nocturnal and b) costly, as you waste a lot of formula. But I should have said IME to clarify my statement.

Genuine questions re guidelines - to my more knowledgable MN-ers.

1. Is it OK to exceed the daily amount the manufacturers set? My DS happily would and has but I'm always worried about it.
2. As tethers and Namada state I've always added formula to what I thought was hot water but not been worried re the bug as the water was sterile- is the risk of bugs due to temperature then instead?

Worried re DS, thanks.

Bearandcub, (1) I think the guidelines that formula manufacturers state on the tin are only a rough guide. According to a book I have, my son (5 months) should drink between 750ml and 1200ml a day, which is a very large range! He drinks nearly 1200ml. I just make the bottles slightly bigger than he would normally drink so that he can stop when he is full. I figure he drank what he wanted when I was BF, so he can do the same when FF. He's tracking 75 centile and very healthy.

I have the Bosch kettle that heats to 70c. Got it from John Lewis.
www.johnlewis.com/230878180/Product.aspx

Thanks schmalex, is it the only kettle out there that heats to 70c? Not really got £50 for a kettle.

So this is what we did....

Sterilise all the bottles obviously. Boil the kettle, put a timer in for 30 minutes. Put the powder in the bottles first (if you try to add the powder to the water, the steam causes the formula to stick to the scoop) and use an empty bottle to add the correct amount of water. Shake vigorously and then put in the kitchen sink in cold water for 30 minutes and then put at the back of the fridge for up to 12 hours. Then just heat up when you want them using the microwave

If we went out we'd take a sterilised bottle in the change bag and a carton. Try and encourage your baby to have milk not too warm and then they will drink at room temp from a carton so you're not faffing with flasks out and about.

And please feed her on demand! You'll soon know if she has had too much I can still smell the sick in my hair

I experimented heating 3oz of water up in the microwave to see how long it took to get the water to 70 degrees. In our case 50 seconds. Then I add the formula to this, then top up with 5oz of cold water (to make an 8oz feed) bringing the milk to an approx drinking temperature. It can then be cooled down further under the tap if necessary.

You would obviously need to heat less water for smaller feeds to prevent the milk from being far too hot. At least there is little wastage while you are experimenting as you can make the feed as soon as the baby is indicating they are hungry and cool it down as necessary.

Alternatively I have also used a thermos flask to keep the water hot enough and used the same method as above although you obviously still need to be sure the water from the flask is hot enough.

Hi OP, no worries! There seems to be so much info on breastfeeding but not so much on formula feeding (IME anyway).

I'm on my phone so baby link, but of you check the nhs website it has some useful information about formula feeding and preparing the feeds.

I made up the bottles following the instructions on the box exactly. Empty the kettle, fill it with fresh tap water, boil it, leave it to stand for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, pour in the required amount of water eg 210mls, then add the correct number of level scoops eg 7 scoops of powder for 210mls of water. If you then stand the bottle in a bowl of cold water it should be a suitable drinking temperature in 10 minutes.

What I do is make up the whole days worth of bottles in the morning like this and put them in the back of the fridge. I then warm he bottle up for DS to drink when required by standing the bottle in a bowl of boiled water. Always check the temperature of the milk on your inside wrist before feeding the baby.

I found feeding on demand didn't really work well with formula feeding as a lot of milk was getting thrown away, so I roughly feed DS on a 4 hour schedule, but obviously if he was hungry earlier, then I feed him earlier. A newborn baby should normally want feeding every 2-3 hours IME, once the baby is older they may go 3-4 hours between feeds.

I was really worried how much milk DS was having (a lot more than the carton guidelines), but found a useful guide on the nhs website times each pound of the babies weight eg 10lb x 1.5ounces of milk = amount of milk for baby to have within 24 hours.

I honestly don't think you can over feed a baby on milk as they will make it very obvious if they're not hungry by closing their mouth, turning their head away or puking the milk straight back up!

Feeds can be made correctly and stored in the fridge for 24 hours.

I offered dd milk every three hours so would take a bottle out of the fridge 30-45mins before a feed so it wasnt fridge cold, and offered her that. shes never had warm milk.

Hi OP

I ff my DS on demand from day one and although the guidelines seemed annoying at first I soon got the hang of it- you will get used to your own baby's habits. My DS fed every two hours so I made a fresh bottle an hour after each feed, quick cooled in iced water and put in fridge until he was ready. While he was tiny we only left bottles in the fridge for two hours max then discarded. Now he is 8 months we will tend to leave them in the fridge longer. The guidelines do say up to 24 hrs is OK.

If I wasn't sure when his next feed would be, say if he was napping, I put the boiled water in a thermos. Bought a food thermometer and did a few tests to see how long I could leave it in thermos before it goes below 70. As soon as I saw him stirring from his nap I would make up the feed and quick cool.

Not sure about a kettle that heats to 70. The water should be boiled first so it is sterile.

The powder can have pretty nasty bugs in it. These tend to multiply at room temperature so as soon as you make the feed up with water over 70 put it in a bowl of iced water till it is the right temp to feed straight away or till it is completely cool and can go in the fridge for a few hours. The ice bath is especially important if you decide to store the made up bottles in the fridge for a while as then they have then had as little time at room temp as possible.

I was in a total panic at first but eventually got the hang of it. I do still keep cartons in stock though and I tend to rely on them for night feeds and when out and about. When the baby is on solids they will increase your food budget anway so I figured it was worth the extra cost at the early stage too.

hth and congrats on your new baby

Glad to hear people get the hang of it eventually! We're still relying on cartons at night but using the powder during the day- have decided to mix fresh boiled water with refrigirated cooled boiled water for the feeds, it seems to be working ok. I don't know whether this or mixing up all the feeds in advance and putting them in the fridge is safer.

We're feeding on demand at the moment but hoping eventually to get some kind of routine. It is a pain in the arse wasting so much. DD keeps giving feeding cues when she's not actually hungry and taking like 10ml! We tried the cooled boiled water but it seemed to act as an appetiser.

Someone may have already suggested it, but try a dummy - if she spits it out after a few minutes then she is hungry, if not, then it is probably another need she has at that particular minute :)

I would like to point out that the guidelines state the temperature of the water should be a minimum of 70 degrees. The water you use can be hotter so you don't have to cool it to exactly 70, it just can't be cooler than 70.

Got dummies today, going to give it a go! It all seems slightly easier than it did 6 days ago, but it's so easy to feel overwhelmed when you have the baby blues, no?