Formula feeding with Dr Brown's bottles

[Blobby11]

Please can a Dr Brown's user give me some advice?

DS is 7 weeks and suffers badly from colic and possibly silent reflux. He's formula fed with gaviscon in most feeds. I make up feeds as required with boiling water then cool to room temperature in a jug of iced water. Sometimes I use cartons. If it's a new carton I just feed at that temperature. If the carton's open and in the fridge I warm it in a jug of boiled water.

I've decided to try Dr Brown's but there appear to be a few issues

1. it says not to shake the formula but to only stir it. Does it dissolve properly this way?
2. it says not to put boiling water in the bottles. What temperature is ok? I though it needed to be boiling to kill the bacteria in the formula?
3. it says when warming bottles that you need to take the top off the bottle. If the milk is exposed to air like this won't it spoil quicker?

Many thanks

I use the Dr Brown bottles and have always put boiling water in them. Oops! Not sure if its made any difference though. It's certainly not damaged the bottle.
I swirl the formula to dissolve and use the blue funnel thingy to stir the gaviscon if it clumps a bit
I actually bought the tommee tippee perfect prep machine this week to make my bottles up and it's been amazing. Bottles made I'm 2 mins!!!
Just wish the reflux/colic would be as easy...!

Thanks Lindsay. Think I'll risk boiling water then

I'm very tempted by the tommee tippee machine!

hi, you can buy caps for dr browns cheaply on ebay etc which allows you to shake them before adding the teat/ funnel etc.
If you leave the kettle for near 30 mind the water wont be boiling anyway. i made in advance and stored in fridge though so this wasnt a problem. if you dont like that methos why not use a flask to store water that is over 70 and still make feeds fresh ?
i rated the dr browns. my lo had reflux i also think cranial osteopathy helped either that or coinvlcidentally she massively improved at around the same time xx

sorry re typos on phone x

I use a knife to stir the formula in the bottle rather than shake it. And we now use the SMA stay down milk which helped (it say not to use with gaviscon but I did when DD reflux was very bad in the beginning) and you make that up with cold water.

Be careful when using very hot water - dont put the lid on until its cooled a bit. If the water is too hot it ends up coming out of the top of the bottle, I think because of the non-colic valve in the Dr Browns bottle. But I burnt myself a couple of times this way. Which is why I started stirring with a knife because the bottles leaked when I was shaking them with hot water/formula in.

Also mixing gaviscon with a little cold water so it's a runny paste before you add it to the formala stops it from going lumpy.

And failing that I had a plastic tea strainer that I used to get rid of lumps - ah the joys of refluxy babies!

I found the formula gets really frothy if you shake it so started stirring instead to reduce the air in the milk. We have a windy baby and I found it helped reduce that. We also use the Dr Browns bottles and find them much better for reducing the wind. I've always added boiling or almost boiling water to the bottles, scooped in the formula, stirred to dissolve then left to cool without lids to near room temperature before storing in the fridge. I found if you put the lids on while the formula is hot they leak. I also take the lids off to warm them up, again when I warm them with the lid on they can leak.

More faff than normal bottles but worth it to reduce the painful wind our little man was getting.

I used to dissolve 8 scoops of formula in 4 oz boiling water, then add in 4oz of cooled boiled water to bring them to room temp faster. Not sure how this would work with gaviscon though... DD had mild colic but not reflux. We found Hipp formula worked best for her. DD was never great on cartons (v annoying when out and about!!) and usually we suffered the consequences afterwards when we used them.

Oooh pingulingo great tip re gaviscon! I'll try that for the next feed!!! Thanks

I used to stick a spoon in the steriliser and stir the bottles. I also found that just loosening the lids slightly whilst cooling after making / warming up was sufficient to stop the milk spurting out. I did find that they helped my DDs colic. I used to let the water in the kettle cool to 70 degrees, so never used boiling water in them.

Thanks everyone. I've been using cartons while I try out Dr Browns and see if they work. They seem to be helping so I'll try the caps so I can shake them. If that doesn't work I'll try stirring.