How to prepare formula

[Pizzaandsushi]

I’ve absolutely no doubt this has been asked a million times on this thread but hoping people can provide all the answers to the questions an extremely sleep deprived mum has.

I had planned to breastfeed but after a traumatic birth, still waiting on referral for tongue tie and then an attempt at breastfeeding with nipple shields that resulted in straight up blood and a chunk of my nipple coming off (Bambis lady was horrified when she saw it) I’ve moved on to formula feeding to make sure my baby is fed.

However I feel a little clueless and have some questions.

1. How long after boiling kettle do you wait to add water? I add it almost immediately but maybe better to wait?
2. Do you add powder first or water first? I’ve heard adding powder second creates condensation on the scoop which is not good and makes the powder stick to the scoop more. But don’t the two different methods result in different volumes?
3. How do you weigh your water? Using scales or bars on bottle and do you do this in mls or oz?
4. How long do you cool under the tap/in a bowl of cold water before it’s an acceptable temp to store in the fridge (NHS says you can do this for up to 24 hours) and I don’t see how in the dead of night I could make a bottle fresh without him waking up the whole street!

I know I might be overthinking about it but any advice on this and anything else would be extremely welcome.

My best advice would be a perfect prep machine. Like you I planned to bf but couldn't get my son to latch and he ended up losing a lot of weight.
If you don't want a perfect prep add a shot of boiling water then the powder give it a good shake the full on the bottle to the amount you want. I always did feeds in oz's as it was easier a scoop of formula per oz. Thanks think the advice about storage is cool at the back of fridge once and up and use with 24 hours. Hope some of that is useful

Hi OP - sorry you're having such a grim time with breastfeeding.

If you don't have a perfect prep, I'd start by boiling the kettle and emptying it into a jug. Let it cool then put it into the fridge, covered over. Do this every morning. Then it's easy - if your baby will take about 4 ounces of milk (the box will tell you how much to start with):

1. fill the bottle with two ounces of water, using the guide on the side of the bottle;

1. chuck in four level spoons of formula, using the corner of the box rim to help you level the spoon, then close the bottle up completely and shake well

1. then top up with another 2 ounces of cooled boiled water and shake well again.

1. check the temperature by sprinkling it on the inside of your wrist. You want it to feel very close to body temp or slightly cooler.

Bear in mind that bottle teats vary. My DS did fine with bogstandard Mothercare, whereas my DD needed us to shop around a bit and we ended up on Mam bottles and teats.

The most important thing to remember is that every bit of the powder has to be dissolved in the boiling water. That's what makes it sterile/safe. That's why shaking well twice is important - once to fully dissolve the powder and once to make sure that all of the milk is the same temp and doesn't still have patches of being boiling when you feed it to your baby.

I had to top up. I measured the powder into those mam powder dispensers. Bought a new flask for boiling water and a new flask for boiled cooled water or filled a cheap baby bottle.
Pour the worked out amount of not quite boiling (I believe it should be about 70c) into bottle, added the milk powder shake and then topped up with cold and shake again).
It was my cheaper and easier to clean version of a perfect prep. I took a tray up at night with Everything on.

Thanks @confuseddotcom1234
I have been going back and forth this morning about whether to get a Perfect Prep. Would you say they are worth it then? Also can you use any brand of bottle with it? We have Mam bottles but the Perfect Prep is Tommee Tippee?

@HerculesMulligan thanks for your reply! This seems like a much better way to save water too as watching the tap just run whilst I ran the bottles underneath seemed such a waste.
I’m also going to consider a perfect prep if people think they are worth it.
Can I ask? It currently says he should be having 2-3 oz per feed every 2-3 hours but I’m finding he’s such a sleepy/lazy baby that after the first oz he falls asleep only to wake up again an hour later and I have to get another bottle made because the last one is then “too old”. Do you have any advice on that?

I loved ours actually managed to get it second hand just bought a new filter and cleaned it before use. We had tommee tippee bottles but I don't think it matters you can move the bit you put the bottle on so should be fine.

@tothemoonandbackbuses ahh excellent tip on taking a tray of stuff upstairs. We currently have him downstairs in a moses basket as he hated our room but he does have his own room with single bed for me or his dad to be in the same room as him next to his next2me cot (so far unused 😂). I’d really like to go back to that room so there’s a proper bed for us but wasn’t sure what to do about feeding with rushing up and down stairs so this is definitely a solution x

I sympathise as had a chunk taken out of my nipple too sooo painful!!
I used a perfect prep machine when I moved on to formula (picked it up second hand there were lots advertised) and it was a game changer especially in the night! Used the milk storage tommee tippee pots too which makes it so easy and quick to make up and saves faffing around with measurements when your tired in the night

I’m not sure if this will be helpful advice as I’m in France and here we only use bottled water for formula- no tap water. This means we don’t need to boil the water. So I just measure out the bottled water (Evian is fine for babies here) into the bottle, then add the scoops of formula. Swirl and mix well, then heat bottle in warm water or microwave. Temperature check carefully & feed.
Bottled water here is the norm and it’s cheap- it might be more expensive in the UK. Saves boiling the water though!
A friend of mine in the UK has a great hack to save time - she boils water for several bottles at once & stores in a thermos flask so the water is ready! Good for trips out too.

Another friend has the Tommy tippee ‘perfect prep’ machine as others have already said. She loves it xxx

A modern fridge can cope with you putting a bottle in at boiling temp so there's no huge need to cool it under the tap, meaning it doesn't matter overly how long you cool it for. That's what I used to do for DS2 night feeds. I would be worried about getting the mixed water method wrong in the middle of the night, but I am a bit dozy when I'm half asleep.

@confuseddotcom1234 do you have the perfect prep closer to nature? I’m wondering whether the added volume control and light of the day to night version is worth it or whether a lamp will suffice and if the closer to nature is really that noisy?

With regards to baby falling asleep on bottle- there’s not much you can do other than stimulate them as much as you can to keep them awake! That will improve as they grow and can eat more in one go. To not waste formula you can make small amounts at a time if you know they won’t take the full amount - you can always make more if baby stays awake! Obviously means you will be feeding very regularly though so get lots of bottles so you’re not cleaning like a madman! xo

@BertieBotts ah ok excellent. Saves me worrying about water waste! Yeah I think his dad would definitely struggle with mixed water method so it’s good to hear the different ways so we can find what suits us.

You absolutely should not be using tap water in the UK. You're going to get mixed advice on this thread. The NHS has a whole section about doing it safely.

We only made fresh and didn’t store in fridge. We invested in a perfect prep and kept it upstairs. So in the day I had to go up to make bottles but at night it was in the room ready. There was no different volume when I had one and we coped fine.

In terms of using bottles - at the time it said use the bottle within 2 hours - when my babies only drank some of a bottle every hour like yours currently - I’d label each bottle with a throw out time (2 hours after it was made) and use it again if it was within the time. (I labelled with biro on washi tape so it could be easily pulled off after)

I also bought ready made for the change bag - o would made a bottle before going out if we were nearly at a feed but it felt good to have ready made and a sterilised bottle just incase!

Put bottle under the perfect prep or babybrezza and press the button voilà

@thebigpurpleone

You absolutely should not be using tap water in the UK. You're going to get mixed advice on this thread. The NHS has a whole section about doing it safely.

Step 1: Fill the kettle with at least 1 litre of fresh tap water (do not use water that has been boiled before).

You think tapwater isn’t safe, yet you recommend people follow NHS advice which tells you to use tapwater.

@sjxoxo this is exactly the situation!! Just when I think thank god he’s gone to sleep I can rest, I think ahh yeah but he’ll be awake again soon because he’s not had enough. In fact it’s what’s happening right now as I trying to work out whether it’s his hungry face or trying to poo face 😂. I thought it was both but he drank some milk, burped and spat it back up. Ergh just when I think I’m getting the hang of it all, I don’t.
I need to get more bottles too. We have 9 but don’t think that’s enough for smaller more regular feedings.

@Pizzaandsushi

I’ve absolutely no doubt this has been asked a million times on this thread but hoping people can provide all the answers to the questions an extremely sleep deprived mum has.

I had planned to breastfeed but after a traumatic birth, still waiting on referral for tongue tie and then an attempt at breastfeeding with nipple shields that resulted in straight up blood and a chunk of my nipple coming off (Bambis lady was horrified when she saw it) I’ve moved on to formula feeding to make sure my baby is fed.

However I feel a little clueless and have some questions.

1. How long after boiling kettle do you wait to add water? I add it almost immediately but maybe better to wait?
2. Do you add powder first or water first? I’ve heard adding powder second creates condensation on the scoop which is not good and makes the powder stick to the scoop more. But don’t the two different methods result in different volumes?
3. How do you weigh your water? Using scales or bars on bottle and do you do this in mls or oz?
4. How long do you cool under the tap/in a bowl of cold water before it’s an acceptable temp to store in the fridge (NHS says you can do this for up to 24 hours) and I don’t see how in the dead of night I could make a bottle fresh without him waking up the whole street!

I know I might be overthinking about it but any advice on this and anything else would be extremely welcome.

Hey op,

Sorry you had such a tough time with bf. I had similar and ended up FF as a result.

I found the easiest way to do it was boil the kettle, let it cool for a minute so it's not scalding, then put, say 2oz in the bottle if making 5oz. Shake vigorously. Then I'd get my pre boiled cooled water out of the fridge and measure 3oz in a separate bottle and add. It's essentially what the perfect prep does. I worked out the best mix of hot and cold for however many Oz I needed.

Saves the 10 mins of screaming baby whilst trying to make the milk cool

There's some clear info here, OP

www.nhs.uk/conditions/baby/breastfeeding-and-bottle-feeding/bottle-feeding/making-up-baby-formula/

Using bottled water is not recommended. The reason water has to be boiled is because of the risk of bacteria in the formula powder, which is not sterile.

@Wait4nothing I’m stealing the labelling trick for sure. I forget every single time how long they’ve been out and only use if I know it’s been a really short while.

Right I’m getting a Perfect Prep. I think that’s going to help us both a lot in this situation and save fridge/make from fresh methods for things like ready made formula and having time to do so during the day.

Omg I meant to write absolutely not using BOTTLED water!

Get a prep machine. I had a similar breastfeeding experience to you and found switching to formula so confusing when I was sleep deprived, in pain and worried about my baby. The prep machine makes it so much easier.

It filters the water so you don't need to use bottled water.

Make sure you run a cleaning programme regularly - there are scare stories online about them getting mouldy, but that always seems to be because people weren't using the official filter, or didn't clean it.

We had the cheaper version and it was fine, I guess if you were planning to keep it in your bedroom you might want the volume control but realistically a crying baby is as loud as the beep 😂

I thought bottles could be kept for two hours. He will get more awake as he gets older, but for now just accept the waste - you will be making endless bottles and washing them up for a few weeks until he gets into a routine. It's ok - if you were breastfeeding he'd be constantly off and on.

We used Mam bottles, they were brilliant as they can be sterilised in the microwave.

And lastly, don't let your partner feign uselessness. If you can do the mixed water method, so can he. He's not battling newborn hormones on top of everything else.

@Lemonysherbet yeah it makes me feel so rotten with all the HV and Bambis pushing breastfeeding which I completely get but it’s just not feasible for me as much as I’d like to and I never have time to express what little I do have. Certainly not enough to feed a baby.

This has all been really helpful and given us lots more options for quicker and easy ways to make bottles.