FF from birth

[Aworryingtrend]

Putting this here in the hope of getting a more balanced view than in the BreastFeeding/Bottle Feeding section.

I am planning to FF from birth. Please could someone advise:

1. how many 125ml bottles I will need

2. When to move on to the larger bottles

3. Whether I need a bottle warmer? If not how do you warm bottles- microwave or jug of hot water?

4. The actual risk of preparing bottles in advance. I know that DoH guidelines state that each bottle should be freshly prepared due to the risk of bacteria in the formula powder. However I am struggling to understand wht level of risk this is. Eg, one could argue that crossing the road whilst pushing newborn in a pram is a risk! I just want to know the perceived level of risk before deciding whether to prepare bottles in advance for night feeds.

Thanks for any help or advice you can provide.

Presumably like the difference between tinned beans and opened fridge beans - 1 has been produced in sterile environment.

We mixed fed and for bottles we loved useing the formular measuring containers that you put the right amount in so that you then just tip into your water. This saved opening tin, measuring etc.

We also thought about getting a small kettle for upstairs....

Agree that the rules are hard.

(this is in brackets as it is NOT pushing breastfeeding. For night feed I would breast fed while DH made bottle up. I did wonder what on earth those who purely formula fed did in this 20 mins - what a nightmare. If we have another kid, and we're hopedully not as skint I would get cartons and a bottle warmer)

We only used bigger bottle sand second the 'self sterilising' bottled they are great

I FF from birth, we had 4 big bottles and 2 four oz ones. At around 4 months we moved to all big ones.

A big mug of water I fine for re-heating them

We make up our bottle in a batch using slightly cooled boiled water as per instructions and then rapid cool them in the fridge they are then ok for 24 hrs but you have to use them in 2 once it the fridge

Invest in a microwave steralizer (sp!) it's so so useful ours steralizes bottles in 6 mins so much more efficient than Milton with no horrible after taste.

Oh and IMO (and DS's) SMA tastes horrible! But is up to you which formula you pick

Good luck

Oh and I certainly couldn't afford to use pre-made cartons for every feed for and exclusively FF baby do you have any idea how much those cost! A tub/tub and a half of formula every week is expensive enough

The guidelines are about gastroenteritis as well tho aren't they? I would use cartons to begin with too.

You can buy 1 litre bottle of formula ready mixed with a screw top that can be in fridge for 48hrs(I think) once opened - could be useful in the early weeks of feeding all the time?

I used sterile bottle, put boiled water in it, put bottles of cooled boiled water in fridge, then every time I needed a fresh bottle I boiled more water and topped bottle up to perfect temp and put in scoops of powder, so bottle was made fresh everytime,

Loads of my friends and family use this method now too and think its far easier.

That's what I did too GummyberryJuice but this is not now considered to be safe as the powder is not sterile and should be made up in water at 70 degrees C.

re small bottles, my ds4 wasnt on them long at all, but my dd used them for ages as she never liked more than 4oz of milk at a time, so will depend on your baby.

most brands avent, tommee tippee etc do started packs of bottle sand teats and usual they contain a bottle brush as well and they seem to have 2 little and 4 big bottles in them? or they did when i bought them.

re making up milk a cheats method that still uses 70 deg water is to have 2 bottles ready for feed, one sterilised and EMPTY the other sterilised and with pre-cooled boiled water in, say half the amount you need for a feed ie 3oz of a 6oz feed. then when its feed time put the other 3oz of HOT 70 deg water in the empty bottle add ALL 6 scoops of powder, shake well to ensure its mised and then tip in the other 3oz of water from the other bottle, as this is cold it will cool the feed dow quicker :)

you MUST measure the amounts of water carefully and add the powder to the HOT water and then top it up with the PRE-MEASURED cooled boiled water, so you get the right amount of water/powder :) but this works well esp at night time to get a feed at the right temp quickly.

you may need to experiment a bit with the amounts of hot/cold to see what gets it the right temp but its generally 50/50 or 1/3 hot and 2/3 cold :)

and it is ok to make them in advance as long as you cool quikcly ie under a running tap in a bowl of water, and then refrigerate, to warm i just stood them in a jug of hot water, but when doing the half hot/half cold method you don tneed to warm as they are the right temp :)

I do 2 bottles for during the night and then in the day I have the powder measured and add to 2oz boiling water, mix it and then add 4oz of cold water.

I used to use cartons when out but now I take cooled bottles as I can't get them (milk allergy). I think this is safer than making with cooled water as the bacteria has been killed, if I don't think I'll be able to heat a bottle then I just take the powder + bottle of water.

The thing is making bottles and leaving them to sit on counter for too long, so jubilee really our way is still safe as long as bottled are used immediately as bacteria are not getting a chance to grow.

When dd3 was born that's when rules were changed and mw said they had done a survey and too many people were leaving bottles sitting out on worktop for hours and some leaving over night which is a recipe for disaster

no gummiberry its not safe as the formula powder is NOT sterile, hence it needing to be mixed with 70 deg water to kill of bacteria/bugs that may be in it.

the rules were changed after babies DIED from getting certain illnesses from the formula, i forget the name of the one but there is stuff on mnet about it andother poster that know the info ie tiktok i think? and a few others.

I didn't use little bottles - went straight to big - had about 12 in total to avoid constantly washing and sterilising
I used to boil the water, then put a certain amount in each of the bottles (for the whole day in one go in the morning), then store in the fridge, then when it was time for a feed, boil the kettle and top up so it was the correct temp. e.g if making say 5 oz milk, use 3 oz of pre sterile cooled water, and top up with 2 ozs boiling water (might take you a while to work out what is the correct temp ratio of cool to boiling water for your baby!). I found this was much more efficient than constantly waiting for water to cool in a jug of cold water (especially for night feeds!)
I'm sure it goes against latest guidelines but i ignored most of that anyway and did what is right for me and my DC (using some common sense along the way)

Sadly although the first babies to be found to have died from Entrobacter Sakazakii (also known as Chronobacter Sakazakii) in the UK were in 1961, it took until around 2004 to change the guidelines on how to make up formula (the 2005 Infant Feeding Survey asked mothers if they were making up feeds with +70C water so it was about then). The guidelines of using +70C and making each feed as needed are the only way currently known to minimise the risk (bar using ready to feed formula) of bacterial contamination of powdered infant formula, anything other than that is a compromise. If/how much you compromise depends on all sorts of things including the age of the baby, health status of the baby, time constraints, how often you compromise, etc.

E. Sakazakii is a common contaminant of formula powder as you cannot create sterile powder (without irradiating it of course!) and any way as soon as you open the box the formula is open to contamination even if it was sterile before opening. It can grow well at temps between 6-45C but it can grow very slowly at >5C hence the 'if you do make up in advance do not store for longer than 24hrs' recommendation.

The risks are greater with neonates (birth to 6 weeks) for E. Sakazakii than for older infants, but Salmonella is the primary other contaminant (there are very occasionally other bacteria found in formula) which can cause gastroenteritis in any age. Lots of detail here.

Good resources for formula feeding from birth here, here, here and here.

Congratulations on your upcoming baby

I bought the mam set so have had 5 bottles on the go at any one time and that's worked fine. The capacity of the bottle doesn't really matter so you just go up a size when baby is drinking a whole bottle in one sitting. Basically you know they're getting enough each time if they always leave a little so just up it by 10ml each time you find them draining the bottle.

I found this helpful WWW.babycentre.co.UK/formula/howmuchmilk/

I've always used the ready-made milk as there's no waiting for bottles (apart from warming) and no worrying about boiling water and leaving it precisely the right time.

I think a bottle warmer is brill. Think you're not meant to do them in microwave.

Oh worth saying that with power you're sterilising the powder and the water so the formula has to be made with hot water. I thought it was a massive faff and risky hence using ready made. Now dd is 9 months ready made costs about £20 a week. Just before 6 months (ie max she's ever had as big but not yet weaning) it cost me circa £30 a week. Sure I'll get a slating for "wasting" money but that's what I did so wanted to let you know in case it was at all useful for your decisions.

I also demand fed dd so making up powder formula would have taken a bit long each time.

I was the same PineappleBed. I really couldn't get my head around the powder thing and decided I would rather fork out for the cartons. I know they were expensive but I decided it was worth it.