i keep hearing about 'new' guidelines re making up ff in advance,whats it all about?

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when i had dd2(who is just coming up to 14 months),it was still a case of make up the bottles for the day,cool them,put them in the fridge for no more than 24 hours,and heat when required.

i keep reading now that you are supposed to make the bottles up as you need them due to micro-oranisms or something?!

db is due in just over 4 weeks so i really need to know what i'm meant to be doing and why,but nobody tells you anything when you're having your 5th baby as they assume you know it all.(even though when i had my first baby mothers were still being advised to start solids at 3 months,so things have changed quite a bit since then)

help anyone?thanks.

you are supposed to make each feed as it is needed, with water freshly boiled and cooled for 30 minutes......in reality, i think that is really difficult , especially for night feeds

and how can you predict when a newborn is going to want to feed??

i would probably use cartons of milk to start...

this link might help.

well I'm intending to try and Breastfeed DC(S)3 - but if it doesn't work out (like it didn't with DS2 - then I'll bottlefeed - and I'll be darned if I'm messing around making them up as I need them - they'll be made in advance and stored in the fridge - with a new batch made up every morning .......oh blinmey - you can tell this is 3rd time round can't you - all bolshy and "I'll do what I want to do"

thats what i was thinking fannyannie-this is no.5 for me and the other 4 never suffered any ill effects from bottles made in advance.but i do want to look into it more.

i have bought cartons to take to hospital but they work out too expensive to use all the time.

thanks for the link lulu-i can follow all the other guidlines but i cant imagine being able to make a feed at 3am...its difficult enough to wake up enough to remove one from the fridge and warm it up...i think ending up with about 17 scoops of milk in 4oz of water would be worse for the baby

With dd2 I started off breastfeeding but once I moved her onto bottles what we did was...

Sterilised bottles as normal we had ones from mothercare that you sterilised in the microwave they were fab, filled them with fresh boiled water, sealed them up etc and left them sitting on the counter top.

I bought a little divided container from boots that you put the milk powder into, so if you're making 4oz bottles, put 4oz of water in bottles and 4oz of powder in little tub. When baby wants fed all you do is open bottle, tip already measured powder into bottle, put lid on, give it a good shake and start feeding.

Because we kept the bottles at room temperature we didn't need to heat them up just gave them to her straight away which was also brilliant when out and about as you didn't need to worry about finding somewhere to heat them up.
My dd did not suffer in anyway from us doing this by the way although some people thought we were odd for not heating the bottles up but it never bothered her. It was also great in the middle of the night I just took a bottle and the tub of powder with me to bed and when she woke put it all together and away you go, none of this having to get up in the middle of the night and heat up the bottle etc.

In Germany the advice has been for years to make every feed fresh, and the way Linnet describes it I think it sounds incredibly easy and straightforward.

thamks linnet-that does sound alot simpler.it didnt occur to me that somebody would have brought out containers to measure the powder intoas my pregnant brain is barely functioning.i think i will give room temp. bottles from birth as well,its so much easier in the night+out and about

Linnet's technique is really good if you do warm the milk as well - provided you have a microwave, cos you can microwave the water, and then the vigorous shaking you need to do to mix the powder and water also gets rid of any hot spots, makes it all a nice even temperature.

Just don't put the powder container on the top of the bottle, and then shake - very messy.

mothercare bottles

divided container

These are from mothercare, I bought the divided container from Boots but as you can see you now get them from mothercare and probably from supermarkets as well.

The bottles were brilliant as you just fill them with a little bit of water put them all together and pop in the microwave, instructions are really easy to follow and cheaper than buying a seperate steriliser. Of course you may already have a steriliser and not need to buy these but they are brilliant and I really recommend them.

When I had dd1 we made up the bottles in advance and heated them etc but 2nd time around I'd heard of doing it this way and it made life so much easier.

good luck

thanks for all your advice.i have seen those milk containers in tesco now so i will just see how it goes with the different methods mentioned on this thread.

i used the powder dispensers, they were handy , and my LOs had no problem with room temp milk...

i used the ready mixed sma from birth and still do when we're at home, its only now he's on 8oz feeds i use the powder when we're out and about because we can buy 8oz sachets from "toys r us."

All i do is boil a kettle full each morning before we go out, and fill the bottles with the water. Then i just add the powder as and when he's hungry.

It all stemmed, I think, from the deaths of a few babies, possibly in France, due to entereobacteria (sp)

Formula milk is not a sterile product due to its manufacturing process and when they tested it, the amount of bugs in made up formula doubled after half an hour or something. (I havn't got the exact proper details of the study to hand but somthing like)

Prem and newborn babies are more at risk so you are supposed to use cartons for the first few weeks too (because cartons are sterile unloike the powder)