Travelling & Bottlefeeding

[Ellie4Alex]

Hi, I'm off on a four-day break to France in September with my son, Alex. He’ll be 6 months old then. He drinks about 4-5 bottles of formula a day, but I’m not keen to lug all his sterilising equipment with us. I also don’t want to buy extra equipment when we’re out there, as this will be so wasteful. Has anyone any ideas/tips about how I can go on holiday without taking the usual bottle-feeding paraphernalia?

You can buy microwave sterilising bags that take one or two bottles at a time and can be reused up to about 20 times. Very useful. There are also disposable sterile bottles available - but when I last used them (5y ago) they tended to leak. I don't know whether they're more reliable now. Disadvantage of those would be having to lug 20 bottles - bulky. You could also go for the Milton's sterilising, with tablets and tapwater. You'ld only need to take along a tupperware box big enough to fully submerse the bottles, which you could use to transport the bottles and tablets as well.

there's no need to sterilise anything. Just make sure you wash it in nice hot, soapy water

Hi Ellie, Where are you staying - hotel, or self- catering? I've used a couple of differnet ways to sterilise - buy some Milton tablets and make up the solution in your hotel sink, or in a big saucepan or bowl. If you have access to a kitchen you can boil the bottles teats etc in a big saucepan of water for several minutes to sterilise them. Take your little tongs, a little bottle of washing up liquid and bottle brush with you. If you have access to a kettle you can boil bottled water to make up the bottles (some brands are quite high in salt/sodium, perhaps someone else knows which are the best/which to avoid?). If you mix in the formula only as you are about to use it you won't need to refrigerate the baby bottles. Failing that you can buy disposable bottles and cartons of formula although this isn't a cheap option. Enjoy your holiday.

Actally i agree with hairymclary, that you probably don't need to sterilise, but i wasn't brave enough to suggest it!

Blooming Marvellous do a travel steam steriliser which looks very good