bottle feeding help

[scorpiofc]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forums and looking for some help. I've just had my second child (daughter) and on my last, 11yr old, i breastfed. This time round i'm using bottles and am massively confused on the instructions and differing stories around baby formula.

The midwife I have is no real help and just makes me feel guilty around bottle feeding!

The advice I have been given off my sister-in-law is the following:
Boil a kettle
Wait 1/2hr then make up 6-8 feeds
Leave out for approx. 10 minutes
Then store at the back of the fridge and warm up as usual when needed
Any left after 24hrs just discard and start again

is anyone else using this method as the "official guidelines" just are not practical.

My head is hurting and i just need help!!

Thanks in advance.

No, we boil a kettle, leave it a short while, measure water into bottle and add powder, then cool in water or under the tap- we'll use that for up to 2 hours or maybe a bit longer if it goes straight into the fridge. We always have a measure of cold water in the fridge to use to top up a boiled water + powder bottle (ie 90mls boiling water, powder, shake, then 90mls cold water) to make up a bottle quickly or cartons if it's really urgent.
I know some people do as you say but it's not really that much of a faff to do it as the instructions say- you have two hours to use the milk.

A friend of mine has a machine that makes it for you and says it changed her life!

NHS information is here - www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/212827/2900017-Bottle-feeding-leaflet-v1_0-no-crops.pdf

Best is to make each bottle fresh as needed. Second best is to make up the feed with boiled (70 degree) water, cool it as quickly as possible and store in the fridge for as little time as possible but definitely less than 24 hours.

I would make up 6-8 bottles in advance, maybe just a couple, so they are being stored for as little time as possible.

I personally wouldn't do the adding all the formula powder to a small amount of boiled water and then topping up with cold water, as I don't know that there has been any investigation into the safety of this method.

I have just bought a tommee tippee perfect prep machine and it takes the hassle out of making bottles.

It does a shot of hot water into the bottle, you then add the powder and it fills it up to the required level with cool water. Its them ready to drink. No need for bottle warmers etc.

They are not cheap but worth it. You get fresh bottles in 2 mins.

Buy a tommee tippee perfect prep machine if you can. They're quite expensive though. RRP is £100 but they're usually on offer somewhere for £75 or less.

If you pre-make bottles you should cool them quickly rather than leaving them out to cool. Before I had the TT machine I used to make up enough bottles for night time, but make day time ones as needed. Difficult when you're feeding on demand, though. DS hasn't ever fed at regular intervals. Sometimes he's hungry after an hour, sometimes four hours!

I make up several at a time as per instructions on tub, flash cool in ice water and then reheat as needed. I I had another bottle fed baby I'd buy one of those machines!!!

The really important thing is to add very hot water (70 degrees plus I believe) to the powder, as it kills any bacteria in it. The powder isn't sterile. I also believe that very hot water does not kill any nutrients in the water, it's more of a risk of burning yourself.