which aptamil?

[nicm]

hi

i'm leaving 8 mo ds for the first night tonight with my parents and have expressed 4 bottles to leave however i'm going to get a couple of cartons of formula to leave as well.

so should i get the from birth aptamil as he has never had it before or do i just get the one from 6 months or would this be too heavy on his stomach?

thank you

From birth, the 6m+ stuff is a marketing gimmick.

Why aptamil, in particular, nicm?

Just use any regular formula - aptamil is dearer, but you don't need to pay it

Olihan,can you please tell me more about that?I've read similar opinion recently and it confuses me even more as i am now thinking of switching from breast to formula and do not know which one to choose.My dd is 26 weeks+

Olihan,can you please tell me more about that?I've read similar opinion recently and it confuses me even more as i am now thinking of switching from breast to formula and do not know which one to choose.My dd is 26 weeks+

follow on milk was invented to get round advertising laws on first milks i.e. you cant advertise them. I did however use follow on milk as it worked out cheaper than using the first milk. Either first milk or follow on will be ok to use. I switched from aptamil to cow and gate as they were made by the same manufacturer but the cow and gate was a bit cheaper.

There are three main types of infant formula - whey dominant (usually marketed as stage 1), casein dominant (usually marketed as stage 2) and casein dominant with more iron (usually marketed as follow on). The first two types can be sold as 'infant formula' for babies from birth'; the third type cannot be sold as 'infant formula' and has to be labelled as 'from six months'.

An eight month old baby can have any of these three types. The follow on will not be 'heavy' on his stomach (though to be honest I am not sure what this means!) but the increased iron in it might make him constipated.

hi olihan, tiktok and seona1973, thanks for the replies. was out and got the formula with only the 1st reply! tiktok which ones would you suggest? it's only going to be a real emergency milk-i normally have enough expressed for him. by heavy on his stomach i mean would it be more likely to make him sick as he's used to breastmilk which is really easy for him to digest? (sorry about that - it must be a northern irish thing to say!! )

nicm - just you were certain of the brand you wanted and I wanted to know why....I was interested to understand how aptamil had marketed itself so you knew this was the one.

Formulas are very, very close to each other in their composition. There is no evidence that one brand is better or easier to digest than another. So you can choose whichever packet goes best with your kitchen decor

the only reason i had choosen aptamil was that i cm and my mindees mum uses this milk after bf. thanks for your advice though. it didn't last anyhow-he was brought home to me last night as he wouldn't settle-just wanted his mummy to feed him! wouldn't take either the expresso or the formula!

We used Aptamil as a paediatrician said to make sure whichever formula you choose it should have prebiotics. Anecdotally it's also supposed to be the closest to breast milk in taste.

extremelychocolateymilkroll, your paed has bought all the marketing hype that formula companies pedal.

aptamil tastes, smells, looks or moves nothing like bm.

the evidence of usefulness of the prebiotics added to formula is dubious at best.

at baby nicm

Interesting story about the paed, extremely....there is no substantial research evidence that prebiotics in formula make formula 'better' and some evidence that they affect the gut in susceptible infants. This is not me saying this, but the formula industry itself

www.ifm.net/industry/prebiotics.htm

New Zealand does not permit their use because safety has not been demonstrated adequately

www.nzfsa.govt.nz/publications/media-releases/2007/fos.htm

The UK department of health permits prebiotics in infant formula but manufacturers are not permitted to make claims for them (though this law is routinely ignored). The Cochrane Database
www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab006474.html says claims that prebiotics have allergy/intolerance benefits do not stand up to scrutiny. A study in a major British nutrition journal was sceptical, too, and pointed to the lack of research:

www.journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=922660

Most infant formula in the UK now has prebiotics and the only one I know of which does not is Hipp Organic. The synthesised prebiotics in formula cannot be obtained organically.

This is not to knock aptamil which is no better or worse than any other formula, but to note how formula marketing works. Getting HCPs to recommend your brand or your formulation is an effective strategy.

just getting more and more confused then...with prebiotics or without...??

Answer is that they prob don't make any difference to most babies, one way or the other

Buy formula if you need it, don't worry about the brand...don't believe any hype you hear from any source!