Newborn tips

[cazzy80]

Hi all,

I am already one week overdue so expecting my little one anytime soon.

I was just wondering if anyone had any handy tips for night time formula feeding?

I am unsure whether to be organised with a nightlight in our bedroom so as to feed and not disrupt the baby too much etc?

Also, how do you prepare your bottles given you can’t make them in advance?

So many questions so thanks for your help and tips

We did prepare ours in the evening and put in fridge so we just had to warm up in the night. Did this with both bubbas and never had any problems (as long as you make it to the instructions and use boiled water etc)
Or you could use the ready made formula, this is really handy but obviously works out expensive.

Tommee tippee perfect prep machine was very handy for the night time feeds!

I agree, the tommee tippee perfect prep machine is a god send! We have a nightlight in our bedroom (well its actually an elephant which projects stars onto the celing lol) i will just put that on whilst i change/feed etc.
Good luck! I hope your LO has made and appearance! :)

We also have a perfect prep for 6 week old DD. It only takes a couple of minutes.

We also have a grow egg and the glow from that is just enough to feed her. Tbh I try not to open my eyes too much!

We got a dimmer switch on the light on the nursery where the changing table is though.

I make formula fresh but you have to wait for it to cool from 70 degrees. So I keep cold bottled water in the fridge to dunk the formula bottle in so it cools in 3-4 mins. Quicker if you have ice cubes.

We only ever used room temp milk so didn't have to heat things up. Was the best tip I was ever given. Had just assumed babies had to have warm milk. Night feeds were really easy as a result.

If you are using room temperature milk then it has to be the premise stuff in unopened cartoons. This will be very expensive but worth it for the first few weeks.

You don’t need to worry about not disturbing a new born over night as they will be wide awake and they see lots of light inside you now. I had to sleep with the bedroom lamp on for 6 weeks as it was they only way DD would sleep.

If you have a perfect prep then happy days. If not I'd make them in advance following WHO guidelines on making them. Regarding a light I used to use the light on my phone, now I have an even dimmer light which I can also use as a light projector (search on eBay for children light projector). This will go with her in her own room when she's moved out next month.

I don't know what the new guidelines are nowadays but I used to make up sterilised bottles with boiled water and let them cool and then mix the milk powder in just before using. I believe this has now changed and you are supposed to mix the powder with hot water. However I am sure that if you made one up and used it within a couple of hours after cooling it would be fine. I wouldn't recommend leaving them lying around for hours on end - but if you took one up at say 11pm/midnight when you went up to bed and the baby had it at say 1am/2am it would be fine to use. You could perhaps make the next one up then so it would be ready and room temp for the next feed. (Before my time people were advised to make a whole days batch up and store them in the fridge for up to 24 hrs....)
I think if you start off with warm milk though you would then be tied down to it as they would be used to it. I think it could be hard work in the middle of the night to boil the water, mix the powder in and then wait for it to cool down. A tiny baby would be frantic and screaming by that point - so not sure how people do that one.

I do formula overnight and we keep a thermos of hot water which we boil right before bed. We also have a thermos of cold boiled water. I do 30ml of hot, put the formula in and shake it. Then top up with cooled boiled water. I add a tiny bit (10ml ish) of extra cooled water to compensate for the powder to make sure there's enough liquid.