Making up bottles

[Crackers1288]

Hi, this might seem like a stupid question.

I have breastfed my 5 month old and for the last month or so he has had the odd formula feed, he has had ready made formula.

Now I have bought some formula powder. I understand how to make up the bottles at home, my question is how do you do bottles to go out for the day. It says on the tub only to make feeds when needed but is there a way of making feeds so that I can take bottles out with me?

I hope this made sense

When we had our LO now 8 months old I used to make all the feeds I needed for 12 hours in a morning then repeat the process for night feeds. Spoke to my HV about doing this and she said it’s absolutely fine. Alternatively you can buy pre made formula bottles in the shoermarket, I always carry a small one with me in case I haven’t had time to make a bottle or she wants more than what I have with me but they only last for 2 hours then you have to throw them away!

That should say supermarket.

I used to make up 12 hours worth of feeds as PP said, if going out I would put them in a small cool bag with an ice pack, easy enough to warm up out and about, a lot of places have baby stations or cafes will give you a jug of hot water, in the end my DD just took it as it came.

I think the 'official' advice is to take a flask of hot water and you can buy tubs with sections to measure out the right amount of formula per feed into but this always seemed a faff to me, nothing wrong with making it in advance as long as you start with a sterile bottle and clean worktops IMO

The water needs to be above 70C to kill the bacteria in the formula (I used to think we boiled the water because of stuff in the water - not true!)

It's not advisable to use a bottle of formula more than 2 hours after it's been mixed.

A thermos should keep water above 70C for much of the day.

Official advice is to make bottles up as and when you need them. In practice I used ready made when out and powder at home.

I use ready made bottles when out, always have one or two in the changing bag

I take out a bottle of cooled boiled water, and a thermos of boiling water.

When o need to make a feed I put a couple of Oz of boiling water in, then put in formula powder. Shake. Then top up with cooled boiled water.

Makes a bottle that is ready to drink immediately

You make them up as it says on the instructions and then rapidly cool them and store them at the back of the fridge.

Once out of the fridge use them within 2 hours.

To be honest though I never bothered, I just got small bottles of pre mix to throw in my rucksack if we were going anywhere, or just measured out the right amount of powder into the bottle and asked for a shot of hot water and some cold tap water depending on where we were going.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/infant-formula-questions/?#what-do-i-need-if-im-formula-feeding-away-from-home

Thank you for your replies. I didn’t know if it was ‘ok’ to cool down the mixed formula when it was made first, and then heat it up again when needed.

Depends how long you're out for but I found during the bottle stage I was rarely out longer than 2 hours in total so I could make it before leaving the house and use it in that time. For very long journeys, I'd take a flask of hot water and a bottle of cooled boiled water to make up as a pp has explained (hot first), or the ready made but we mostly had to avoid that as it made my Dd's reflux worse due to being thinner.

I just use premade when it and about. I tried doing the powder and flask thing and it was too much of a faff....