Honesty time - who is making formula in advance?

[redxlondon]

I just can’t see how when baby is screaming hungry I can make formula fresh. So I make up bottles and store in fridge, then heat when ready to serve. I do this twice a day, so ones for night I make before bed, and ones for the day in the morning. A friend said to buy the TT perfect machine, but that sounds like it comes with health concerns too so I don’t see how it would be better?

What’s your experience?

I pre made bottles much to the same schedule as you do now, my child was absolutely fine.

I made all mine up in advance and stored them in the fridge. Whats the issue with that?

We do all the above including perfect prep machine and she has it room temperature if out and about as she started off in pre-made stuff and we never warmed that!

I'm lazy and use a prep machine but I have made them in advance in the past,
People will moan about bacteria etc but do what you think it right,

I always prepared and then stored in the fridge. Heated up in a jug of hot water or shock horror the microwave on the very odd occasion- very well shaken of course to prevent hot spots .
Is it a relative new thing not to do that I wonder as my children are now grown!

Yep I pre made mine, in batches of 6 (steriliser capacity) and put them in the fridge. I'd take them out about an hour before they usually wanted feeding.

I premade sometimes and used perfect prep machine sometimes. Certainly never made fresh, as you say it's ridiculous when baby is screaming.
I do think it's not safe to use all cold boiled water when out though - I see a lot of people doing this thinking because the water has been boiled before it's safe. No, a hot shot needs to be 70 degrees when it mixes with the powder to sterilise it. Then you can add cold to make it drinkable temp. It's the powder that's potentially unsafe, not the water.

I have older kids. Spent a lot of time in hospital when young and the nurse thought I was batshit to make when needed … i changed routine making once and putting in fridge. No problem at all and it was a bit of a life saver at the time.

Thanks all - the new mum pressures are so real, “real life” approaches to the daily challenges help

I premade. My kids are 18, 17 and 4 and have all lived to tell the tale! The guidance changed between each of them.

I did this. My MIL who is a midwife said if you make them up twice a day, you'll be fine. Keep the bottles in the fridge fridge and not the fridge door.

I never did that as I was too worried about it. I'm sure it's fine to make up a couple in advance but better safe than sorry! But I did used to prepare the next couple of bottles in advance with the little tubs of measured formula.

1st baby i made all bottles night beforw and put in the fridge.

2nd baby bought a perfect prep and it was a game changer!

This is absolutely fine as long as you've made the bottles with boiling water. The point is that the formula needs to be made with boiling water to kill any bacteria (with is why perfect prep machines are said to be bad- because they don't get the water up to boiling). If you then cool and store and reheat the bottle it's completely fine.

I used a perfect prep machine with my little one and she’s been absolutely fine. We also used the premade bottles in the early days when there was so many night feeds .

Same, 3 years ago. I think a lot of the advice is really only to stop absolute dumb asses doing stupid things. Like making up 5 days of formula or heating in a microwave and NOT mixing.

So my DC are 12 and 10 now, but we made each days bottles up the night before, rapidly cooled them and warmed them up when needed

They’re not comparable though, if you’re talking about from a health point of view rather than preference?

We did sometimes use part very hot water (boiler and left to cool a bit, but for less than 30
minutes), shake to kill bacteria then top up with measured, cold, pre-boiled water and shake again. I’m sure lots of people do make them in advance and chill them though!

I used to make them with half boiling water half cold - maybe not exactly 50/50 but basically making sure the formula was all hit by the boiling water to kill any germs, but then using the cold to make it pretty much drinkable straight away.

May I ask compared to making in advance, how does the perfect prep save any time or hassle?

No as in I use the prep machine and sometimes make in advance and don’t re warm!!

When I worked on a paediatric ward we made all the bottles up on night shift for the next 24 hours!

Why did you pre boil your cooled water?

Perfect Prep only takes 2 minutes to make a bottle

We made the water in the bottles for the next day and added divided formula at feeding time

In one of those Tommy tippee containers