Switching to formula questions

[Haz1516]

Hi,

My baby is almost 7 months old and, having previously been ebf, has in the last couple of weeks suddenly decided he will happily drink from a bottle! I have now started giving him one bottle of formula a day, with the view of starting to increase this and no longer breastfeeding.

However, I have also realised that I don't really know anything about bottle feeding/formula. Are there any tips I should know about preparation wise to make life easier? Can I have bottles premade ready, if so how long can I keep them for? Do I have to stick to 4 hour intervals between bottles? Do I need to worry more about baby taking air in? Anything else that's important to know?

Sorry if this all sounds silly, but any tips would be great! TIA

No you don’t need to stick to four hour intervals at all. In the early days we formula fed pretty much on demand but at about five weeks I started feeding every three hours. By eight or nine months I had cut milk feeds down to three per day (about 8oz) and was much more reliant on solids. At about one year old we switched to cow’s milk and one feed per day, before bed.

I found seven months to be a tricky time because of weaning so it might take some time to find a pattern that works for you. Then it’ll change again in a few weeks

In terms of bottle preparation, the key thing to remember is that the formula powder needs to be sterilised - not so much the water (especially at seven months). It’s sterilised by mixing with boiling water above 70 degrees (but not boiling water as it can damage the formula). Your options are:

Make bottles up in a batch, flash cool and put in the back of the fridge. Keep for up to 24 hours I think (double check that)

Make each bottle up as you need it, with water from the kettle that has been boiled and cooled for no more than half an hour to ensure it’s the right temp to sterilise he powder. Cool by either mixing in some cooled water or running under a hot tap. The latter takes aaaaages.

Or... buy a Perfect Prep machine! It was by far the best piece of kit we had. Making bottles with it is easy peasy.

Don’t worry about air, just burp your baby as normal after feeds. A seven month old shouldn’t need much of that at all, if any.

My biggest gripe about formula feeding is leaving the house with the stuff as it’s a pain to sterilise powder on the go and you can’t keep it out of the fridge for long at all. I used a thermos of hot water and measured the formula out beforehand into a tub, so it just needed mixed and then topped up with cold water. Ready to feed bottles of formula are available which are much easier and don’t need to be refrigerated until they’re opened. This won’t be a big problem for you though as it won’t be long until you can leave the house with no bottles to worry about!