making up bottles........................................again!!!

[yarrow5]

Hi, this old thread again. just wondering, i make up the bottles wrong. i know i do so please don't just tell me the right way

Do you have to boil the water just so you have it at the right temperature to kill the bugs in the formula? I boil the water then put it in the bottles and leave them on the side ready for when they're needed. I therefore make them up with cold boiled water.

Ds drinks tap water so am i just wasting my time boiling the water for his bottles???

yes you are wasting time as making it up with cold water is not any use for killing the bugs in the milk powder, the point of boiling the water is to kill bugs in the milk, not really to kill bugs in the water in this country.

After 30 mins the water is not hot enough to kill the bugs in the milk powder as milk powder is not sterile.

I boil the water about 20 minutes before dd is due a feed. I find that seems to work ok although I was irritated by the whole procedure at first!! The only time I find difficult is when she wakes in the night for a feed - but you could use cartons at night...

well you are kind of wasting your time if you are not making up the bottles correctly.

how old is your ds?

he's 10 months now so i've made it up wrong all this time, & he'll be going onto cows milk soon anyway!! I was just curious to see if this is the only reason!

I didn't realise the reasons behind the proper way to make up bottles until he was about 6 months old and being weaned so didn't see the point in starting to do it properly then when he was munching on all sorts of dirt and stones in the garden!! I laugh at myself boiling the kettle, leaving it 30mins then pouring it in the bottles then leaving them on the side!!!

yarrow I do pretty much the same with bottles and have for both my ds's. I read that although if your dc gets ill from formula, there is only a 20% mortality rate, but it is quite unlikely if your baby was born at term without complications.
You don't have to laugh at yourslf leaving the kettle for half an hour, you're not supposed to put boiling water directly in bottles anymore anyway.
The way I see it, there are so many guidelines for everything now, you just have to do what you are happy and comfortable with.

Message withdrawn

I don't think you're supposed to store made up bottles in the fridge fr long periods anymore, even if they were made in the correct way.

www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/formulaguidance.pdf

I suspect yarrow may have missed a decimal point there somewhere!

LovelyTinOfSpam decimal point?? i don't understand!!!

Thanks for the replies. MissSunny I'm trying to work up to not sterilising at all but i fear i may be like you!

Sorry yarrow! Misread the post it was littleboyblue's "only 20% mortality rate" that I suspected was a tad wonky!

Sorry

Ha ha, thats ok! I just thought I was going a bit thick for a minute!!

You'd be better off making up 2-3 at a time with boiling water, and putting them in the fridge immediately. I know that's not the right way either but better than cooling the water? However I have been doing it that way from time to time since DS was about 6 months, when I stopped sterilising. He east food and any other crap he finds on the floor anyway....

I did it completely different. I would sterilise bottles and add cooled boiled water. I would then put them in the fridge. When I needed to prepare a feed, I would warm the bottle of water and add the correct amount of powder kept in a little tub. When I went out I would put the bottle in a cool bag, powder in a tub and a flask of hot water to heat the bottle. Worked for me and mine. Did I nearly kill them?

It's the powder that needs to be sterilised.

Sterilising the bottles is prob far less necessary as long as you wash and rinse thoroughly - you can see when a bottle is clean. You can't see when the powder has salmonella or enterocbacter.

To make up bottles according to guidelines, the powder must be added to water that is no cooler than 70 deg C.

Adding the powder to water that's already been cooled and then heating the bottle is contrary to the guidance.