The dark art of timing sterilisation machine operation for expressing, bottle feeding etc.

[hub2dee]

Hi all,

Well, we have our new baby home as of yesterday and things are going well.

As she was 4 weeks early, weighing 4lbs 4, we need to get lots of feeding in but can't breastfeed fulltime as it tires her out too much, and apparently she should conserve her energy for body temp / growth / fattening up rather than exhausting herself on the boob IYSWIM.

We are therefore putting her to the breast for a few sucks first so she 'keeps her hand in' so to speak at the beginning of every feed.

The thing that I find rather complicated, especially at odd hours of the night, is trying to figure out an efficient way to sterilise the breast pump, expressed containers, bottles and teats.

The machine instructions (Avent electric) say contents remain sterile for 3 hours if you don't take the lid off, but if you do take it off bottles need to be made up straight away.

Can anyone outline how they got their head round timing all this ? I just can't quite figure out how it is best done, whether the milk should be decanted into bottles immediately on expressing etc. etc. etc.

In hospital they were last feeding to a 4 hourly schedule, throwing away teats / bottles after each feed (SCBU), but they suggested it would be fine to demand feed at home. Feeds are every 2 - 4 1/2 hours, lasting 1/2 hour to 1 hour if that makes any difference. She takes between 40 and 70 ml. DW would like to express for all feeds if possible, building up enough supplies in the milk bank so I can feed gorgeous babby at night. DW's milk flow seems great, with 100ml expressed this morning for example.

Any insight into how people timed all this feeding / expressing / equipment sterilistaion would be appreciated !

Sorry everyone what I was really trying to say was that it will be ok, and so don't need to worry about it too much

IMHO and I am just a mum not qualified or anything was just repeating what was told to us.

IMHO I would spend more time cuddling the babies or watching them sleep

Every family is different and what works for one may not be right for another.

Rahter than spending the time sterilizing

I have no experience of premmies but I did work for a microbiologist for many years.

Although he was very strict with basic hygiene rules, one of his biggest complaints (besides the antibiotic argument which isn't relevant here) was the over use of sterilisation. He listed it as one of the root causes behind many outbreaks of illness - especially on maternity wards.

ANOTHER MIN HIJACK
saint george - who di d you use to be....

Snugs

Hi Hub2dee, congratulations on baby! I sterilise everything at once if possible and leavr them in the fridge, IMO the bottles are fine until the milk goes in, then you have to start being careful about storage times. Also my ds3 was 8 weeks prem and I was advised to bottlefeed EBM at home but after a day or so I got fed up and just bf him as after I had finished bf he would only take 10ml of EBM anyway . He did fine!

Also, if you put clingfilm on the NUK teats that should protect them.

Hub,
count me on the list of people that never sterelized anything.....
Also, welshmum (another Junie) received the same instructions from her hospital when her DD was in SCBu....
hth

Had thought about clingfilm on teats, and am doing that to a certain degree, but it's not strictly sterile, IYSWIM.

I asked our community midwife who visited today, and they suggested sterilising.

The diversity of professional opinion in this area (ie nurses / managers of SCBU etc.) is very interesting.

We used Avent ones and you can buy a solid cap to screw under the ring (similar to the under cap of the breast pump) so that with the bottle cap on top the teat remains sterile. Just took, them out of the steriliser and screwed it all together and they were ok for 24hours at room temperature. Not sure if other feeding systems do this though.

I expressed full time for my newborn. I sterilised the pump and bottles once a day and expressed every 3 hours. I would leave the milk out at room temp for a few hours (but this was Feb and not a heatwave like we are having now)

Thanks for all the input. Am slowly getting the hang of things !

What works for us is dividing the EBM into bottles for big feeds (say 40 - 60 mils) and little top-up / greedy baby feeds (say 20 mils), that way we can grab what we need according to the size of the scream, LOL.

Still, there are loads of bits sitting around post-sterlisiation because they aren't what we needed at the time, and there are other bits we forgot... I think the trick is to do one of anything you might need - say a NUK teat to go on a bottle of formula if there is no EBM, as well as everything you will need (breast pump, expressed milk bottle, 3 X drinking bottles with teats etc. etc.)

(All comments / great ideas / tips 'n tricks appreciated !)

Some feeds are done in 30 mins, others seem to drag on for well over an hour, with lots of burp time and more doziness before she is keen for the bottle again. Not sure whether it is best to attempt to restrict the feeding to whatever she can drink in a given time, or if the slowly, slowly, fill-her-uppy method is better... (she esp. needs to put weight on as she was a little bit prem and IUGR, so skinny !)

can i jsut say hub, that i wish my dh was as hands on as you in this whole feeding malrky

popsycal, if you flat out refuse to sterilise whatever needs to be done, or sort out bits you need etc., and let him handle a screaming, hubgry baby for 5 minutes while you go and grab / clean bits you need, I'm sure he'll be running to do it for you next time !!!!!!!

X