Which brand of formula should I use?

[Coj]

There are so many on the market! Still breast feeding (8 1/2 months) but need to change soon. Is Aptamil best coz most expensive? Which is most like breast milk? Advice needed ladies!

wickedwaterwitch are you looking for a veggie formula?? (or have I picked that up wrong?)
Nanny formula is veggie (says it on tin and I've checked ingredients)

wow. yes. didn't know u cd mix breastmilk with formula! Have been thinking abt mix-feeding cos of b/m production slowing down a bit. wonder what r the best ways to do this (shd i start new thread??)

The thinking on mixing breastmilk and formula in the same bottle is that while it is fine for the baby, you could risk wasting some of your precious ebm...an unfinished bottle means you are chucking it down the sink. Just a thought

Hazlinh, what do you mean about breastmilk production slowing down a bit? This can be deceptive - that is, people think normal physiological processes (such as breasts softening, baby spending less time on feeds, or feeding more often) are signs of less milk. And they may well not be. Even if milk supply is an issue, you can make it worse with the addition of formula. Mixed feeding is an option and can work alongside continued breastfeeding, but you have to do it 'right' and at the right time, or you end up fully formula feeding when you didn't want to

Hazlinh - just re-read your other thread.....no sign of milk production slowing down there, just a normal healthy baby with a weight gain that is slowing at a normal rate and at a normal age

BTW, Susanmt is right about teeth. Many mothers find it makes no diff at all.

Susan & tik- a good friend said she was stopping then because it was painful.
I will prob wait & see for myself. Would be a shame to stop because I really had to work at it in the beg & always said I have done if I get to 6wks, then 4m, then 6m ... Thanks for your confidence in me though! Encouragement always helps.

See how the teeth go. My dd2 now has three of the things - top and bottom - and honestly they don't affect the latch.

My ds has got eight teeth - doesn't feel any different.
A lot of people want to stop around this time (going back to work etc.) and so teeth are quite a handy reason. Not saying your friend is lying or that it's not painful for everyone - just that people sometimes feel they need a reason to stop bfing (which they don't).
As with so many things I wouldn't worry about it until it happens.

Hi Coj,
I introduced a beaker of Hipp to my dd at about 10 months as I wanted her to get used to taking a cup and couldn't express enough myself. My ds breastfed till he was 18 months and I found it really hard to introduce a cup or bottle at that age as he had grown very particular!
My dd is now 15 months and although her main feeds (morning and bedtime) are breast she really enjoys her formula in the afternoon. It also means I am really confident about leaving her when I go out because I know she won't be missing a feed.
I tried her on cows milk first but although she enjoys it on her cereal she would not drink it. I think she prefers the Hipp because it tastes quite sweet and seems (to me!) very similar to breast milk!

Don't give up breastfeeding until your little treasure is at least one.

thanks tiktok...needed that sort of encouragement!!!
I shall persevere...my next b/f milestone will be when dd turns 4 mths in 2 weeks time..shall release balloons when that comes!!

Have tried everything trying to solve the mistery of our baby's eczema, while digging information around we got lots of different opinions, the following are our conclusions but please take them lightly as every baby is different and what has been good for mine may not necessarily be as good for yours:

1. Midwives, HV and doctors are not allowed to recommend a brand so if one slips a name or recommendation take it. The usual ansew is "all baby formulae are similar in constitution and nutritionally correct... once you get this line the HV, doctor or pediatrician, you won't get any more information.

2. Cow and gate causes more constipation than other brands (told by a pediatrician but asked me not to tell anybody that she has said that -well, I'm not saying her name)

3. Hipp can make sick a good quantity of babies, not all of them but if you feel that your baby may be responding bad to Hipp, well, change it, it's organic but is not for every one.

4. Soya milk. We tried it but didn't make a significant difference. Were advised by 3 different GPs not to use it for long periods.

5. Farley. Very greasy (not a bad thing for a baby), considerably better than cow and gate but still causes a bit of constipation in some babies.

6. Goat milk formula. Apparently great for allergies but incredibly expensive compared to other brands and difficult to find as well. We were very eager to try it (were very desperate with eczema), however we found out that it has not been enriched with extra vitamins and minerals and does not provide all the nutrients a baby needs. If your baby is already weaned then I suppose that doesn't represent a real problem as he will be getting the extra vitamins from other sources.

7. Aptamil. More expensive but definitively worth the extra money, it was one of the first formulae to have LCPs (now all of them have them) but now it also have prebiotics. I found an article in the interaction of allergies and formulae milks from a French university which unfortunately I have misplaced. The brands were different (or at least their names) but Aptamil (Milupa) was, according to that article, the best for eczema babies, so we decided to try it and noticed that our baby' eczema was considerably better and constipation problems disapeared for good.

8. SMA not much experience on it, we were going to try it after Aptimil but then Aptamil was so good that we stick to it and stop testing.

Interesting stuff, Chandra!

The reason why health professionals do not/should not make brand recommendations is that they can't do it from an evidence base. They can tell you what they have noticed from their own experience ( but I would want to know that their experience amounts to hundreds of babies at least). There is no independent comparison of baby formulas. Formula education of HPs comes from the manufacturers themselves. They are in the business of selling stuff, naturally enough.

Goats milk formula on sale in the UK has to meet government requirements for nutrients. This is the law.

LCPs are 'flavour of the month' but if you really look into it, the research supporting their use is thin. Ingredients of infant formula chop and change according to an economic, marketing-led agenda.

I have said before, that if I had to use formula for some reason or if someone asked me what brand to choose, I would always go for the brand that's been around longest - you can't be sure it is the same as it always was, but I would be a bit suspicious of anything promoting itself with 'added XYZ' or "New!!' I would prefer something that has been around a long time. Anything that's 'New!!' can't possibly have had any long-term effects (good or bad) noted. OTOH, if something has been popular for 20 to 30 years, one might at least hope that any serious defects (over and above the fact it isn't breastmilk!) would have been spotted.

One drawback of the tendency to chop and change by manufacturers is the fact that you might find one brand appears to help a particular condition (like eczema, or constipation) but it may not work for another baby (or even the same baby months later) because the formulation is not the same. This, I think explains why mothers will report quite different effects with the same brand. The ingredients of formula have to fit a range specified in law, but it is a range....the precise amount is up to the maker.

God I have learnt so much. Want to scream all this from the rooftops, but most mums I know use Cow & Gate so prob wouldn't want to hear it.
Pleased to hear you recommened Aptamil because that's what I am using with cereal at mo.
Are prebiotics what is in yoghurt? Perhaps we need to find out what HVs, midwives & docs give their babies.

Coj, knowing what HVs etc give their babies wouldn't help at all! They don't have access to any more unbiased info than anyone else!

Yes - prebiotics are the very latest thing to be added to formula and some studies show they are promising.

But look at this study and you will see that other researchers are concerned because we just don't know the long term effects.

Very interesting study perhaps not so "friendly" bacteria. This echoes what somebody else said about the oldest formula being safest.
Am using Aptamil 2 in cereal but also bought 3 - when do I move on to this?
Full fat cows milk - is organic best?

YEs Tik Tok that's why I said "the following are our conclusions but please take them lightly as every baby is different and what has been good for mine may not necessarily be as good for yours"

In the specific case of eczema, the benefits of prebiotics have and continue to be studied (scientifically, not hear and say) so I'm glad they have decided to include them in formula, by the way, I don't think that staying with the one that has been around the longest is necesarily a good advise, otherwise we all would still be using diluted Carnation milk. Further to your comment on goats formula, you need to import it and if you check you will realise that you should not always trust that just because something is sold in England it is nutritionally correct.

Coj,yep, this thing of carefully choosing a formula can get you very worried, there are studies that say something is good and there are others that contradict them. However, how much I wish that this information was more readily available, lots of people continue pushing the idea that breastfeeding is best, which is true but fail to realise that if, for any reason, you are no longer breastfeeding there's no way you can go back to it and dear we need good advice in which formula is best for the specific needs of our babies once our milk is gone.

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chandra i have a BSc in Nutrition and can say for definate that Nanny formula is absolutly fine, has absolutly fine levels of all the vitamins and minerals. i wouldn't sell it it my shop if i had any doubts about it and i would certainly not have given it to both my kids ( who are very healthy and often commented on by strangers how healthy they look). Also its made in New Zealand which isn't known for its lack of quality.

I tried aptamil because of the LCPs but it caused my ds to be very sick - we used omneo comfort in the end - supposedly for more colicky babies.
I think each baby is so different.

Hi...i use the milumil. My ds2 is a bit funny with milks. It is a milk for hungier babies that is gentler on the stomach. I found that the cow and gate milks were far to rich for him and my other children and made them sick. My other 2 were on the Farleys milk and my HV said that that was a 'good middle of the range' milk. She recommended the aptamil range to me for ds2.

Chandra, goats milk formula which did not comply with UK regs would be illegal in the UK - wherever it is made. Lots of infant formula on sale in the UK is made elsewhere.

I agree with the principle that formulas should 'move on' in quality, but as robinw says, newer formulations haven't been around long enough for us to be sure of the long term effects (good or bad).

Interesting you mention Carnation milk. Carnation used to be used, diluted, to feed babies. Because it was canned, it was a convenient and clean way to store cows milk. The protein in it was not processed in any way, unlike today's formulas, which basically pre-start the digestive process, and also take out the fat and add other fats instead. You can learn a lot by reading the pack info - formula is basically skimmed cows milk with a lot of stuff added . So, although Carnation - evaporated cows milk - is different from formula, it's actually not that different.

I would go for a long-established formula myself, but this is only a matter of preference - I don't think I could back it up with anything substantial.

I do find it interesting that HPs, when pressed and sometimes when not pressed, will 'recommend' Aptamil. I can only think the intense marketing campaign to HPs has paid off! They have no justification on nutritional grounds as far as I can tell, now that almost all other formulas have LCPs in them too.

You lot sound like you have done your homework! Keep going because I am learning loads- thanks!