How long to keep water for bottles.

[custard1]

How long can I keep bottles of cool, boiled water in the fridge? Could I prepare them the night before for the following day when my DD starts nursey.

The HV and midwife both said 24 hours

yes 24 hours

Do you mean for making up milk or for drinking water? I thought you were supposed to make the formula with hot water and allow to cool, in order to kill the salmonella. Search on here and there are lots of threads, if that is what you meant.

AllBuggiedOut is right - should be fresh hot water for every feed.
In fact nursery should insist on this as it's an OFSTED-type H&S issue...

My friend makes her bottles up, formula and all, she makes all 6 of them 24 hours in advance, when I told her about the midwife saying to make the water up, let it cool add milk when needed, she's never been told this.

Her daughter is 5 weeks older than mine .

Nursery will not make up bottles from scratch so I have to send the filled bottles with cooled boiled water in and the formula measured out for them to add.

I use water straight from tap for all feeds. Why does anyone boil and cool the water? Fresh British tap water is just fine.

I was told 24 hours by one HV and to make them fresh by another

I always made up 6 bottles of water after his last feed around 9pm just saved hassle next day just add the powder as needed.

Sterilise,boil water, fill bottles leave to cool for 30 mins in basin of cold water and then put in fridge well thats the way I always did it anyway.

And if uhavent discovered them yet Tommee Tippee do little plastic tubs which fit inside wideneck bottles or you get different ones to fit closer to nature bottles I used both and hold 7 scoops of powder without the bulk of a seperate box just open them and pour it in they were £2 for 3 and I must say were my best baby buy!

Bedbug, its not a problem with the water - formula powder isn;t sterile and sometimes contains some quite nasty bacteria.
The only way to kill them is to make sure you add the powder to hot (>70C) water.
It's best to then cool it to drinking temp and use straight away, but you can store the made-up formula in the fridge for 24h if you need to.

You can download the leaflet on best practice for making up formula from here

The risk is small, and I know you will all say 'oh I have done it the other way for years and we are fine', but why take the risk?

Badger

Im not going to say 'I did it this way bla de bla' I was just wondering are u health profesional at all?

Thats a genuine question BTW not as snide as it sounds

It s just because Ive heard about that but was advised against it as thats how my mum did it with me and my siblings yet I was told to put milk in cooled water as it can I cant think of the word basically go erm... LOL

The word is gone but its not good anyway.

Just a general inteest because the advice seems to change every few years as with how u put a aby to sleep everyone has a different opinion and it mixes people up which suggests there is no rite or wrong.

Oh bloody hell now I feel like a terrible mother cos I have been making up her bottles from cool boiled water!

I have read the leaflet and therefore don't understand why the nursery I have chosen gives prepared bottles (water and then they add formula). Oh it's so confusing.

YBND, the issue is that there have been some very serious cases of illness (bacterial meningitis I believe) in Europe because cooled water did not kill bacteria in the unsterilised milk powder. The risk is small but enough to make the Dept of Health issue recent advice: so recent it contradicts most of what you will read on a formula packet.

current advice as in the leaflet recommended in MrsBadger's link is to let the water cool for no more than 30 mins to make sure it is above 65 degrees C. At this temperature you can be sure it kills any bugs.

If you must make up bottles in advance it is better to do it with very hot water then cool and store the bottles in the main part of the fridge rather than using cooled boiled water then warming: if you only warm, the powder has not come into contact with enough heat at any point in the process.

After ds has gone to bed, I wash and sterilse bottles for tomorrow, fill with boiled water, let cool and put in fridge. Add the powder at feed time and warm through.
I was told water in fridge for 24 hours is fine.

Can anyone tell me why you cant make up your bottles for the day with just the water, then heat the water (while in the bottle) to over 70 degrees and mix?

just warming is not what you are aiming for here. the powder is the thing to be worried about, not the water.

custard1, you are not a terrible mother.
When ds was born I started feeing him his milk at room temperature so bottles of water would be on the side for the day.
I'm not a bad mother, just took me a bit of time to process all advice given to me by every single person I know.
That I know of, most people store water in fridge and warm when needed, however, as been pointed out, powder is not sterile.
Take onboard all the advice given and decide what you are most comfortable with

turtle, you could do that but it would need some practice to be sure you'd got it to the right temp I reckon.

custard your nursery seem to be out of date here, you should show them the leaflet.

Ok, IS WHAT I DO OK?
I put hot(just boiled) water into the sterilised bottles (all 9 of them), and then line them up in our CUPBOARD for use during the day. I put the powder in the bottles as needed, and then give to my baby. I dont heat them - theyre just room temp. Is this ok?

flubdub
I gave mine room temp milk at start as this was how it was done at hospital, but was then later told that the warmer the milk the easier the wind comes up. That the only reason I started warming.
If your lo isn't showing signs of being ill, it must be ok.
My friend does what you do but she does warm and her ds is fine

Oh and i left the days bottles on the side

flubdub and littleboyblue, it might well be 'OK' in the sense of not having created problems and might never do, but PLEASE read the link to the dept of health leaflet that MrsB put up and make your own mind up.

And please read the thread - I've explained the issue below as have others

According to them (the DoH), it is NOT OK because of a very small but real risk of serious infection from the non-sterile powder. Sorry to be blunt but the guidelines have changed recently (in the last year or so) because a very few babies have died of infection from powdered formula. Instructions are NOT correct on many formula packets and the correct guidelines are different to what many people do and are advised by friends, HVs, parents and MNers.

the comment 'if your lo is not showing signs of being ill, it must be OK' needs challenging I'm afraid... it doesn't work like this

For a 5 oz feed, I have started using freshly boiled water for 3oz, add 5 scoops of formula, shake, and then add 2oz of cooled boiled water from the fridge (measured from the fridge bottle, not the bottle holding the hot water, iyswim) so that it doesn't take so long to cool and give to dd.
So it's useful to know to keep the cooled boiled water in the fridge for no longer than 24 hours.

flubdub, what you are doing is WRONG. you need to heat the powder by using hot water.

whether you choose to boil the water first or sterilise the bottle doesn't matter.