Travel abroad and bottle feeding - what to take?

[zebedeethezebra]

I'm bottle feeding my DS and wondering the logistics of travelling abroad some time this year for a holiday.

How is this done whilst bottle feeding? What clobber do I need to take? Is it just all of his feeding stuff? How do I sterilise stuff if there is no microwave. And what if there is no kettle to make up the formula? Can I buy formula abroad?

Just wondering how other people manage it.

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I suppose it depends where you are going and how old he will be. Our dd was born in Oman and I didn't have a microwave at first. I used a milton equivalent. the drawback of course is being able to rinse the bottles and store them. Formula is available all over the world although, the formulation may well vary. I can't remember what we used for dd, I think it was cow and gate, in the UK the strength of the powder was twice what we were used to I think we overfed her for a couple of days.

You can take milk with you, if you go in a hotel lots of them have microwaves in the resturant we bought some microwave steraliser bags from mothercare really easy to use and one bag is reusable and you can use it on a fortnights holiday all you have to do is put a drop of water in the bottom and pop bottles in for around 3 minutes. If you went in a villa most have microwaves or if you ended up in a self catering apartment you would be best probably checking with travel agent that apartments have a microwave. Take a travel kettle with you in case there isnt a kettle.

A tip for you is dont used bottled water either when you go abroad there is minerals in the water that upsets childrens tummies my doctor told me to use there water from the tap as you are killing the germs when you boil the water. I am a travel agent and have travelled alot with young children and using local water has always been fine for them they have never been ill. They are both older now so the bottled water is fine.

Alot of places sell baby milk but it depends what brand most places are cow and gate and sma both mine had aptimal and i nevr found any abroad. If you re going to somewhere like spain you have more chance of getting the milk we went to turkey with our young dd and it was a good job we took our own milk as we couldnt see any.

Good luck any questions just ask, you could stock up your case with the ready made milk cartons but beware of luggage allowance.

Take a small plastic container and some sterilising tablets and cold sterilise, you can use tap water to sterilise.

You can also take a travel kettle to boil the water, don't use tap water though as it can upset baby's tummy because it usually has a very high mineral content, only use bottled water. I used to live in Turkey and all the mums there used bottled water for their babies.

I would advise taking your own formula as you can't get all the brands abroad.

If there is no microwave, you can take a tuppercontainer and sterilising tablets. As it's hollow you can stuff it with other things so it doesn't take up too much room. I always took formula with me. I always bought the little sachets. In Italy you have to buy it from the chemist, and they don't offer the same choice. In France it is available in the supermarket but £££. I have also made bottles with Evian water where i did not have access to a kettle. This was recommended to me as it is has very low levels of minerals.

Lol at the different advice we all have on the water hee hee

You can order the milk and baby food that you need and have it delivered to your holiday hotel or villa at www.littlelogistics.com You can order ready to use formula milk in the brand you are used to and also disposable pre sterilised bottles. We find it makes it loads more relaxing on holiday and helps to keep within the luggage allowance.

Also, if you need milk for the plane you can pre order this from Boots at the airport so you can collect it once you have gone through security.

Definitely mineral over tap - most countries label baby safe mineral which has low sodium, sulphates and nitrates. Evian is internationally available. You can't guarantee the tap water won't have been in lead pipes, for example.

You still need to boil it to kill the bugs in the powder though. If you absolutely can't then make and use immediately and discard within an hour.

Depending on where you're going and what age baby is you may be able to get pre made second stage baby milk.

Take Milton tablets and sterilise in the sink. As long as the concentration is right there's no need to rinse.

I used to use steri-bottles. they are once use prepacked bottles. don't know if they still exist but they are brilliant

if you can afford it steribottles and that premade baby milk in those tetra paks make things really easy