To Perfect Prep or not Perfect Prep, that is the question....

[Suzysuz]

I've seen people say how amazing and helpful they are, and others saying about the potential mould issue.
From looking up about the potential mould issue I can see TT saying that it may be harmless carbon / people not using the clean cycle / people not changing filter or using the official TT filters. However some of the reports from people who had this are that they did follow all the right steps - I can't see any final or conclusive statement from TT so it seems to be left hanging officially unanswered unless I've missed it somewhere?
I'm torn between getting a machine and actually just trying to replicate what the machines do using fresh boiled water (our kettle shows temperatures) with the powder and a top up with cool boiled water (would need to play around to ensure right amount hot water to powder, cool water enough for tight feeding temp etc)

Personally I don't see the need to have a machine to make bottles for you. I'd never ever have one.
I prefer to make them by hand. Simply refill the kettle with fresh water, boil it, and leave it for 30 minutes, this allows the water to reach the correct temperature. Then make the bottles, shake, and I left to cool naturally at room temperature. Then I stored them in the fridge.
So easy. I made my sons bottles like that and he's always been fine. My mum made bottles for the 3 of us like that and we were all fine.
A machine to do it says lazy to me. Sorry.

I loved mine, used it for DD and DS2 (born 11 months apart). Always did the cleaning cycle and changed filters, and never had an issue with mould (tech savvy DP dismantled it completely and put it back together again before we passed it on).

I've used one since I could no longer breastfeed at 6 weeks until now (ds2 is almost a year) and I don't know what I would have done without it. I weighed up the alternatives: expensive pre made milk, making my screaming crying baby wait half an hour for a feed (even at night!), Or doing the method that's not recommended atall of pre making and storing in the fridge. So I felt the tt was the best option.

We toyed with the idea of getting one but actually just use the flask method (at home as well as out and about) which works really well for us.

We boil the kettle, let cool for 10 mins then fill a flask. This keeps the water hot enough for about 6 hours. We also keep a supply of cooled boiled water in the fridge (refresh this every am/pm). When we need to make a 5oz bottle, we add 2oz of hot water from flask, then formula, shake, then top up with 3oz cooled boiled water from fridge. It takes no time, is the perfect temp for baby, and a lot cheaper than the perfect prep. Which I also had doubts about over the mould issue.

Love mine. Kettle method is fine but I couldn't be arsed with all that faff at 3am - it literally takes seconds to make a bottle. DH had ours to bits after the news reports and it was clean as a whistle.

The proper TT filters are quite pricey so I suspect corners may have been cut with the mound issues?

Mould not mound...

We also used a flask. Was very quick during the night and quieter too. Couldn't see the point myself.

You'd have had to pry mine from my cold dead hands......

If you do go for it, keep an eye out for the Asda baby event as I got mine half price.

Lucinda15 thanks for the measurement tips! Son is on about 5oz feeds too!

For night feeds (doesn't have as many now) and going out I'll use the pre-ready formula bottles.

It's AMAZING.

I love mine. I've used the same one for ds1 and ds2 and have never had a problem in 4 yrs. I think it was mentioned that some people were buying cheaper filters for them and this is what caused the issue.

I've had to make bottles when we've been away and it's a right faff compared to the prep machine.

I loved it when DS was small. kel1234 might think it's lazy but actually her method doesn't follow the guidelines (especially cooling at room temperature - if you're going to make bottles in advance you're supposed to flash cool them). The TT machine made me feel safer.

However... although I didn't get any mould (we checked), I found that there's an area in the water storage compartment that never really drains and there was a bit of pale brown stuff there after several months of use. We always followed the cleaning instructions and used TT filters only; I'm sure it was harmless and DS was fine but it bothered me a bit and we ended up buying a new machine.

Next time I think I'll get a variable temperature kettle instead as I think that'll be easier to keep clean. They're expensive but they would be perfect for making up bottles as long as you measured out the cold water in advance.

"Or doing the method that's not recommended atall of pre making and storing in the fridge"

This is completely wrong. Pre-making, flash cooling and storing in the fridge is expressly recommended by the WTO as the preferred alternative to freshly making each bottle. The guidelines say to cool as quickly as possible using cold running water or ice and then store in the back of a fridge. The bottles are safe to be stored for up to 24 hours. No health organisation or authority recommends the machine.

Edit - WHO, not WTO!

I don't know a huge amount about them except that in the NHS (I'm a midwife) we have been told to NOT recommend them and actively discourage parents from buying them.

CatchingBabies Do why have you been told not to recommend them? It's basically just a water-heating device.

Part of me suspects this whole thing about the perfect prep being 'unsafe' is is just more bf propaganda. Also, any innovation designed to make life easier for mothers seems to come under attack - pouches and jars of weaning food are another example.

It was hands down the best piece of baby kit that we bought.

If my house was on fire, I would have saved it. That good.

People with the flasks - how do you know if the water is 70 degrees?

I have an confession.

We bought a massive big brita filter when DS was born, topped it up every day.
So when making a bottle, all we did was pop the powder in the bottle, shot of boiling water the make the powder into a sort of gloop, and kill all the bacteria, then in goes the filtered water to cool it off.
EXACTLY what the perfect prep does. £70 cheaper 💁🏼

Our formula (prescription as DD2 is CMPI) specifically says that we should boil water, cool it to room temperature and then add formula powder . I actually realised about 2 days in that I was getting it wrong by using hot water.

This bothered me, but she's been fine and I think it's something to do with not killing off the good stuff in the formula. It also says that pre-made bottles can be stored for 24 hours in the fridge (or 2 out). It did make me wonder about all the conflicting advice. Obviously don't do this if it's not what your formula says though!

The problem with the Perfect Prep machine is that the second shot of water hasn't been boiled and has only been filtered.

I had one on my first DS and always felt terrible using it. I knew I wasn't making the bottles up properly. So I stopped. I found batch making and fridge storage worked well.

We also used to use our own method of perfect prep making. We had cooled boiled water measured out in a bottled and had 70 degree water in another, added the powder to it shook and then added cooled boiled water. It was great but really had to pay attention to make sure qualities were correct.

The WHO guidelines recommend the batch making as an alternative to freshly made bottles.

@fartnisseverbeans it's due to the volume of water.

So it's the formula milk that isn't sterile and the water has to be hot enough to kill the bacteria in the formula. There has been entensive research done as to the temperature of water required to ensure the formula is safe.

However those tests were done with a larger volume of boiling water and there is no evidence that the "hot shot" is sufficient to kill the bacteria, they are quoting research regarding the water temperature to "prove" it is but that reasearch used full bottles of water.

Honestly, although I loved ours, if you are using pre-mixed for outings and at night I would just pre-prepare the bottle and with boiling water. Depending on how old your DC is, you may not get that much use out of it

@Melvin. The thing with the heated water into powder is to d with the risk of the powder being contaminated. The risk is very tiny but for normal formulas, there is no downside or negative effects from the hot water, so the advice is to use the hot water to t eliminate the tiny risk. For certain speciality formulas, heated water may destroy some nutrients or other components of the speciality formula. So then it becomes a question of balancing risks - the minute but serious risk of bacteria in powder, v the almost certainty that heat will destroy the special formulation and so leave the baby malnourished. And as you have seen, for certain formulas, the balance of risks comes out on the side of using cool water to preserve the nutrients.

You can of course minimise the bacteria risk by ensuring scrupulous hygiene every time for your hands, the scoop, the surfaces and the bottles but I'm sure you're doing that all already.