SUPPORT thread for Formula Feeders

[riab]

Hi everyone, I'd like to start a thread for people who are forumla feeding or who plan to Formula feed.
Whatever your reasons are for choosing to formula feed they won't be questioned here. This isn't a thread for long drawn out debates it is a place where you can ask advice from other parents on topics like;
whats the best sterilisation method
different brands of formula
weaning of bottles
etc

riab
x

Hi riab, this is a great idea! And may I be the first to ask a question??

My ds is 9mo and just lately is not drinking his milk. The last couple of days he's gone from having 18oz a day to less than 10. He'll drink an oz or so then just spit the bottle out and refuses to take any more. Is this normal? He's also on antibiotics at the minute and I'm wondering if that's having an effect or if he's maybe ready to have his milk in a cup instead.

Any help/advice/support appreciated x

what is he on antibiotics for?

cold, cough & ear infection, he's about half-way through the course now

Hi Riab (and others) - thanks for starting new thread. I didn't mean to cause an uproar when I posted before but because of what happened to me wrt feeding I was disappointed that there seemed to be alot of negative comments wrt FF on the other board. I am pro BF (Bf first DD) but also pro doing what you need to do to ensure that your baby gets nourishment - surely most important thing....but was looking for support because have had to FF 2nd DD and at times have felt very down about it - not least because of the type of comments posted on the previous board. 2nd DD now doing very well on FFs thank goodness.

Pudding - DD had a spell last week when she went form drinking LOADS to hardly any (she is a bit younger tho) but got over it. think she may have had a wee bug that we wern't aware of and was feeling undre the weather. Could be the same for your DS? especially if he is on antibiotics. How much solids is he taking - could that be the problem? they are a worry tho. xx

Thanx for this Riab - glad to have a forum for us ffer's.

Does anyone out there know how much a 15 1/2 lb baby should be drinking as the HV told me about 37.5 oz a day (take the babies weight and multiply it by 2.5) but my 17 week old DS barely takes 30oz a day so there seems to be quite a big discrepancy - he is putting on weight at a rapid rate (faster than the centile charts - although he did have pyloric stenosis 9-10 weeks ago and lost a pound and has been catching up ever since). He has finally caught back up to the centile he was originally on so I know I shouldn't be concerned as he is obviously getting enough calories but wondered how much other babys are having. He is also sleeping through the night so is not waking with hunger.

Hi stocking - got same advice re amount of formula from my HV but DD takes a lot less. She is still putting on weight tho and think that is the guide we have to follow. Is DS content between feeds? - thats another important factor. Apparently they are incapable of starving thmeselves but when DD was barely had half the recommended I sometimes wonder!! XX

Mozi - DS is an extremely happy and contented baby in between feeds - I am giving him 5 8oz bottles a day but he only usually finishes 1 or 2 of those bottles - the rest he eats about half but as you say, if he is happy I shouldn't get hung up on what he 'should' be having.

mozi i certainly didn't mean to upset you. what i meant to do in my post on the other thread, but obviously didn't make myself clear, was explain why i think threads like that one generally end up making FFers (of which i'm one) feel bad about themselves. we all, no matter how we feed, ought to be able to feel that we are doing the best we can for our babies, because lets face it we are!!!. the trouble is that FFers tend to feel, or to be made to feel, that what they are doing is second best. and i don't think thats acceptable!

Polly - I completely agree with you. If it was your comment I used I didn't mean to single you out. It is just that there was a general tone on that board, which I think you were just echoing, that we should make our decisions (or have our decisions made for us!)and be happy with them regardless of how we feel when I felt that these threads were for support, not for getting at each other as mums. God knows we all know its hard work regardless of how you feed your baby!! Because I BF no. 1 and loved it I was distraught at not being able to do it for No.2 especially as we had a dreadful start (in brief she was born 4 wks early by emergency c-section due to a fetal maternal haemorrhage and was critically ill for a while - I didn't even get to touch her for a week.) The BF was something I wanted to get right and felt like a failure for being unable to do it. When I saw the thread for bottle feeding I was looking forward to getting some help and discussing what had happened but felt like I had to like it or lump it..... I am now much more settled with the feeding - after all the 'negative health benefits of FF' - (something I saw on another thread I didn't post on.....) are surely outweighted by the negative health benefits of starving!!! Although I BFed no. 1 I have never been a member of the BF mafia. Me, you and all the other FFers are being just as good mums as the BFers. Thanks for your support XXXX

good luck with thread. I'd like to ask a question - if I am thinking of starting formula for my ds ( 15 weeks) which is the best feed to give? I was thinking about the midnight feed in order to help him feel full thru the night - but am also worried about his stomach being upset at night. Any ideas?

We use aptamil which was recommended by my HV. Have heard good things about it and DD certainly doing fine. Although your are eventually going to give it as the midnight feed what about trying it during the day for a few times first to see if he tolerates it ok then move to the later feed. Nothing worse than anticipating a difficult night!!

thanks mozi - will try it!

Hi all, my 2 are older now at 7yrs and 3yrs. Ds was on Cow&Gate and dd was on aptimil, ds was a bigger baby and mw suggested in hosp at his birth to put him on this and he was absolutely fine but he did feed a lot and drained his bottles so i moved him on to the hungrier baby cow&gate, dd was breast fed for a short while and then hv recommended aptimil but dd was a very sicky baby who had a bit of reflux and she was also very colicky but i stuck to aptimil and she took this until 13m she stopped being sick at 9m so i eventually started to beleive it was almost certainly reflux and not the milk

Hi - I was a committed bf-er but would like to add my support to those who choose not to. There's far too much pressure on Mums to conform to some NCT ideal. My children are fit & healthy, but ds1 had asthma even though he was exclusively breastfed. All his mates who were bottle fed are equally healthy.
The most important thing is to enjoy your babies and try to have fun and stay relaxed - that's what makes a good mum.

my top tip for bottle feeding - feed the formula at room temperature, thus doing away with the need to heat up a bottle while a baby is screaming, good esp when they are little and feeding a lot, particularly if you need to give them a top up feed in a hurry, or if you are out and about and can't heat up a bottle.
i used to sterilise the bottles, fill them with boiled water, put the lids on and then leave them on the kitchen bench until needed. i just added powder as and when i needed to feed.
i started doing this with my daughter when she was maybe four months old. with the next babies (twins) i did it from birth (i was BF-ing and topping up with formula). they didn't seem to mind!

Same with jars of baby food - at least the fruit puree ones. No point making work for yourself.

Hi mozi - he's not really eating as much food as he normally does either, especially today so you're probably right & he's just a bit under the weather. I'll keep an eye on him in the meantime.

Xmasstocking - I feel that as long as they're healthy, putting on weight & happy then not to get too caught up in how much they're supposed to be having. If they're full you certainly can't force them to drink! (Says she worried about how much milk ds isn't drinking atm )

Regarding other comments - I also felt guilty for not being able to bf. My ds didn't want to from the start and, after 2 weeks of trying, decided to ff him only. Some of the midwives & hv were fine and really supportive but others made me feel so bad, like I was giving up too soon but at the end of the day, my ds needed me to be hapy & relaxed, not miserable! I will try to bf any other children I had but if that doesn't work either then I won't feel too stressed about it again!

Sorry, v long!

(and I was also a committed home cook/puree type - but didn't think it would kill my babies to give them a bought jar for convenience every now and then!)

Used SMA with DD1 and Aptimil for DD2. Preferred Aptimil and wished I had used it for DD1 as I wonder if it could have prevented a colicky phase? Who knows!
I suffer from mild asthma and allergies so was really concerned about this when stopped bf after only couple of weeks. Both my children are fine (so far) and showing no obvious asthmatic or allergic traits.
After reading numerous reports recently about how many heavy metals and other pollutants can be found in our blood stream and passed on through bf, makes me feel slightly less anxious knowing that at least I haven?t got that concern to worry myself to death over!! Don?t get me wrong, I am not knocking bf at all -obv great but just not for everyone. Too much worry and guilty around. More acceptance, understanding and support required. What a healthy and sensible thread

I would make all my bottles the night before. I would sterilise bottles in microwave steriliser, and leave them on the side in the kitchen with the cooled boiled water in.
I would either make all of them up with the powder before going to bed (or like pollypeacmum I would leave water on the side). It's handy to keep some water 'ready' incase you may need an extra feed or if you drop/spill one in the night!

When out and about I would use one of those insulating bottle bags. I wouldn't heat them whilst out as ds would drink it either way and it wouldn't be in the bag for long anyway, so if I knew he would need the bottle quite soon I would warm it slightly before going out.

What I would have liked to try though is one of those 'in car' heater things for warming feeds - this would have been good for us as ds was born in January!
I also fancied one of those bottle warmer contraptions for the bedroom, I don't know what they are called - always thought I should have tried one of those!

I fed ds SMA gold for first 6 weeks, he was fine on this and he would be taking 8 oz every 3 hours at 6 weeks old and sucked hard on a dummy in between feeds(could have been why he would sleep through from 6 weeks!).
I changed it to SMA white, hungry baby formula. This was fine for him too. He dropped a feed and his dummy when I put him on this, and still gained weight very rapidly.
(He was 9lb 12 at birth so was big)

Mum - wow - as I said before my DS is 17 weeks old and won't take anywhere near 8oz every 3 hours - he was 7lb 14oz at birth so not particularly small - just doesn't appear to want milk that much! He only has a dummy when he is falling asleep so he is obviously just not a hungry baby - should stop stressing, should stop stressing...... (if I tell myself this enough, maybe I will!)

By the way, he is on C&G formula as when I made the decision in hospital to ff, the choice they had was that or SMA - as I had planned on bf, I hadn't even looked at the different brands so the MW made me choose which one on the spot and I have stuck with it ever since.

Bottle warmer for the bedroom - the best thing we ever bought!! The one we got consisted of an ice box which would fit 2 bottles in and a bottle warmer so no trips to the kitchen in the middle of the night. However, DS slept through from about 4 weeks so we only used it v briefly - typical!! Bottle warmer for the car - great idea but ours takes 30 minutes to warm the milk (even though it said 15 minutes) so it needs some very forward planning to use it!

i used cow and gate first stage for all three. I mixed fed DD for about 5 weeks and then went 100% onto formula. the DTs (now 10 months)were on it exclusively from about a week old.
with DD i only ever used the first stage milk.
with the DTs we used the hungrier baby formula (i think in cow and gate its called "Plus") for the middle of the night feed when they were about 2-3 months. i checked with the doctor first and she confirmed that the only difference between the first stage and hungry formulas is that the hungry one takes longer to digest. otherwise its the same.
we did it to try and get them to go longer between feeds during the night. they were big babies despite being twins and they drank a lot. they started to sleep through at just over 3 months. their milk consumption dropped off a bit naturally anyway round about that time and i stopped using the hungry formula. they've been on the first stage ever since. to be honest, i've no idea if using the hungry formula made a difference, but at the time it helped my mental state to think that it might be helping!

I've always used Aptamil as it was the one used in my hospital. Does anyone know if its worth using the follow on milk? I know you can use it from 6 months but just wondered what the difference was.

xmasstocking - I think they are all different, I don't suppose there was anything wrong with ds drinking that much, but he constantly seemed hungry and 'sucky'!
Think if I had breast fed I may have lost lots of weight as he would have been constantly feeding lol! When he was in hospital he wanted more than one of those 'little glass bottles' some nights!

I tried not to wean too early though, I waited until he was 5 months and only then gave him fruit and veg mashed up. He was a very easy baby to wean. I let him do it himself really, I didn't have a clue how to wean so I would just offer him things to try each day!

Those car bottle warmers may have been a flash in the pan then! Ds slept through from around 6 wks so probably wouldn't have had too much use for the bedroom warmer either then, but who cares I bet it was worth it!