how do you make up bottles (store in fridge till needed, or make up as go along) and best way of warming them up

[tinkisinthe3rdtrimester]

hi

i am 29 weeks pregnant

will be just bottle feeding this one
just getting orgnaized
with dd made them all up in the fridge night before heard there is new guidlines about doindthis and that u should only make up as you go along
was thinking especially with night feeds if you make up as you go along wont it be too hot how do you cool down?

Ang - the last thing I meant to do was offend you.

you didnt it was someone else on this thread, i was saying thank you for your advice. it is amazing how many people do not know about it though!!

thats my point i did not know any different same as you and was shocked by the response. to tell a mum she is putting her child at risk is not nice. i will now follow the guidelines as closely as i can. thank you pinacolada for the support

Awful behavior on here, People use these forums for general advice and then they can take that advice and use it how they wish. There is no need to get personal and call people names, absolutely ridiculous.

I make my babies bottles on the advice of my paediatrician here in Spain. I use COLD mineral water add formula(nestle nidina) shake and heat in bottle warmer or microwave if out and about of if needs are desperate. Thats how you are told to do it here.

I am sure i have not harmed my baby in any way and no I don't need to be told that i have.

doesn't it tell you on the side of the formula how to make it up?

i have bought a cheap kettle, (so you can still have a brew whilst waiting for water to cool!!!) and make the bottles up one by one if i am in all day. at night i make one to take to bed and put it in an insulated bag, if she wakes up she has at room temp. i also make one for the morning and store it in fridge. if they are too hot run under the cold tap, it says so on the box. if we are going out i make it just before leaving and put it in insulated bag. With my ds (2.4) i made them all at once for the next 24 hrs, dont find doing this way that much more stressful!
hope i don't get shouted at too!!

I have read this thread with interest as my DS is ff and I make up bottles by cooling water for 30 mins, mixing in the powder and then storing in the fridge.

I have heard the new advice but just don't understand how I could implement it with a demand fed baby - my DS has no routine to his feeds, sometimes he has 2hr breaks, sometimes 3 hrs, sometimes 4hrs. Is the advice really that I should let him scream (and boy does he scream when he's hungry!) for 45 mins or so while I boil the water, wait 30 mins for it to cool down, add the powder, and then desperately run it under a cold tap to cool it down enough for him to drink.

How do I comfort my starving and distraught son at this point?

My stress levels are going through the roof just thinking about.

It is a genuine question, btw, I'm not being facetious. How do you do it?

don't know what you would do in that situation, mine is on 3 hour routine so i know when it is time to boil.
the cooling down whilst baby is screamimg is v. stressful though!

spongebrain, it was mentioned earlier in the thread that you can make up the full amount of powder with half the required amount of just off the boil water and then add cooled boiled water (or tap water if baby is over six months) to take it down to the right drinking temp. As long as the water that hits the powder is over 70ish degrees then the bugs will be killed.

ang, I'm sorry if I offended you earlier, but your comment came over as a bit poo pooing of the guidelines initially and a bit "I do that and mine are all right". that's what I responded to as it appeared you were telling the OP to ignore the unneccesary guidelines.

Parofleurmapu, that's all very well for Spain perhaps, but not the advice here, so I'm not sure your argument is relevant. Although I doubt that Nestle powder is any more sterile than Hipp or Cow & Gate. And the majority of babies that have been affected by ESakazakii have been, as far as I'm aware, in France/southern Europe. It's also not advised to use mineral water here as the sodium levels can be high and there are less than stringent quality controls on bottled water than tap water in the UK. (was there not a big scare a few years ago with arsenic in some big name French mineral water?)

EachPeachPearMum, even if it were sterile when it left the factory, it would lose that sterility as soon as it's opened.

freddysteddy, it's one thing to tell someone they are giving bad advice but it's bang out of order to tell people they are thick and that they should go and use another forum. I'm a bit at that; not very MN imo.

I went quiet cos I had something very important to do (watching a DVD with my sis ).

Thanks pina for your support .

I agree about how ridiculous things can get on here. I am quite offended at being called 'thick' for following advise I was given by a health visitor.....

I really never knew about these risks and of course I would never put my child at risk.

I would be very interested to see how many people who FF know if this risk, IYSWIM.

Thanks chequers for putting me straight.

Shame other people have to be so nasty and rude.

and thanks lackydasisycal for agreeing with me that it's out of order to call some-one thick.

lucky, it's sadly another snippet of information that the formula companies would rather wasn't out there in the public domain and as such they are hardly likely to put warnings on their tins.

when I fed my DS six years ago, Farleys sold milk in a kit that had a jug for making up a full days supply and you just bought giant pint sized sachets, made it up in the jug and kept it in the fridge until needed. I presume they stopped selling it when guidelines changed. It was only when I went looking for it for DD last year when she went onto formula at 10 months that I found out about the possible contamination of formula with bacteria.

Has anyone reported freddysteddys posts? If you click on the red exclamation mark you can report it to MNHQ.

I'd just like to point out one thing... to sterilise an item requires either chemical treatment (Milton or similar) or around 5 minutes steam treatment. Even just rinsing something in boiling water is not enough to kill bacteria.

Using hot water to make formula (should there be bacteria present in the dried formula) would actually cause the bacteria to multiply more quickly than in colder water.

As far as I can see, the main reason for adding formula to hot water is to aid solubility and to minimise the water 'standing' and picking up contaminants.

Any of the guidelines given are subject to them being 'best known at this point' and subject to change. But, IMHO, no supplier would ever give instructions that didn't have a HUGE safety factor built in to them.

Hi Pina and LP74 - just nipped over from May '08 to lend my support. Am slightly gobsmacked at freddysteddy's rudeness and hugely irritated by her use of the passive aggressive . If you're going to call someone thick then ffs why are you smiling about it? At least have enough balls to be rude properly.

Thanks for this thread and information. Very Grateful. I was never told anything about these guidelines and just attempted to use the instructions printed on the side of the formula packaging. I say attempted because now in hindsight I think they are suggesting as the new guidelines suggest, but by not being explicit they are in fact just confusing.

Aptimil state "boil freshly run water. Leave kettle to cool for 30 minutes. Do not use artificially softened water or repeatedly boiled water." and "do not add powder to boiling water due to risk of scalding"

From this ( and without reading or knowing of the guidelines you show here) I assumed the "leave to cool for 30 min" was indicating to use cooled boiled water.
There is no mention of the water being over 50 or 70 degrees.
I wonder if this is an attempt to avoid mentioning that the powder is not sterile?? And Surely the guidelines should be printed on the packaging??

My dd is 6 months now. Fortunately, I 90% breast fed her and gave one premade formula or EBM bottle a day until recently. phweee.
Now however, I am feeding dd 90% formula and I just started introducing powder. She has got through 2 cartons so far using my interpretation of the instructions.

I will show these links and guidelines to dh and we will definitely be following the new advice.
Many thanks..

OMG Just had a closer look at packaging. It does in fact state...

"because powered milks are not sterile, failure to follow instructions may make your baby ill."

But I still stand that the instructions are not that totally explicitly clear.

Lackdaisycal Re mineral water we actually buy water reccommended by paed for not having high levels of anything, think mineral water is probably far better then some of the stuff that comes out of english taps!!!! Lol
Its the same with weaning guidelines all countries differ but I still think that my argument was valid as people and OP can read and then decide what to do. Just cause its Spain doesnt mean its wrong

i agree with another poster that the guidelines are prob to not leave water standing.

And yes lackdasiycal i and another MN user reported her last night

omg i have created a horrible thread here
as i said befire no nastiness please!!!!hshock]
i am still confused as to what to do

can someone tell me simply what to do
someone made a good point about her child screaming while you wait for the bottle to cool down.
i was thinking more of nighttime feeds didnt really want to be stood in the kitchen in the dark waiting 30 mins for it to cool

The water doesn't have to be left for 30 minutes, it just cannot be used after 30 minutes.

Boil the kettle and make the formula up straight away then put it in iced water and it should cool down fairly quickly.

OR, I think someone on this thread has already said keep some cooled boiled water in a sterile bottle in a fridge. Say you are making a 7 ounce bottle, then put 3 ounces of hot freshly boiled water in until the powder dissolves, then add the 4 oz of cooled boiled water. That shouldn't take too long either.

cheers chequers

tink, sorry this thread got a bit antsy. Congrats on your pregnancy.

Blimey - I pre boil the water and put the powder in when it's cold as and when I need it. The post from notseriousanymore was interesting 'Using hot water to make formula (should there be bacteria present in the dried formula) would actually cause the bacteria to multiply more quickly than in colder water'. I agree - 70 degrees won't kill any bacteria at all. You'd have to boil up the milk powder and water for about 10 minutes! Will just use the pre made cartons from now on - assume these ARE sterile until opened? They are easier anyway but more expensive. Hey ho. PS there are some nasty pieces of work on MN which is a shame.

I ff and found out the guidelines only recently (even though according to this thread they have ben in place since I had my prev 2 as well). I don't follow them. I think they are utterly impractical and have the same issues about screaming baby. Also the worry I have with sterility is the length of time that the formula is in liquid form. All the time is it a liquid the bugs have a chance to divide. If the liquid is warm they do so more rapidly but if it is cold they can still divide. The new guidelines have done away with the idea of making a batch and putting it in the fridge until needed - presumably for that very reason. The compromise I have reached is to make up bottles of boiled water and only add the formula at the very last minute (to what is then room temp water). I realise I may be taking a risk but certainly not the same risk as running in front of a car and hoping they break . I just can't follow the guidelines - I have a busy life and am not always home and don't know when the next feed will necessarily be.

I'm pretty sure that kind of heat does kill bacteria, not make them multiply. Surely that's the principle of steam/microwave sterilisers?