Need advice on bottle feeding

[theguru75]

I need to bottle feed my baby which is due next year. It appears that to make a feed, fresh water needs to be boiled and then be left to cool down before adding the formula powder. I am concerned that if the baby starts crying in the middle of the night asking for her milk, spending 20-30 mins boiling and cooling water will be too long while the baby is crying her eyes out. Is it really realistic to go through this entire process from scratch? Are there alternatives? Can feeds be safely pre-prepared to avoid the distress and hassle of a rushed feed making exercise?
Many thanks

My friend has a Tommee Tippee bottle baker, seems pretty good.
Think it makes a bottle in 2 minutes to the correct temperature.

You an get ready made formula for night feeds. If you can get the baby to take it cold you never have to faff with warming it up. This is the easiest option.

Or you can make formula with a mixture of boiling water and cooled boiled water. I.e. One ounce boiling water, add powder for four ounces and mix, then measure out three ounces of cbw in a separate bottle and add to bottle. If it's fridge cold cbw then it shouldn't be too hard to get the bottle to the right temp. You have to add the boiling water onto the formula to kill nasties.

It's against guidelines now, but I used to make up a days worth of feeds every evening and put them in the fridge. I'd take the night time ones upstairs in a Fridge to Go, and warm them up under the bathroom tap when needed.

Fridge to Go .

I used to boil water let it cool then fill the bottles for the day
Pur the amount of formula for each bottle in little tubs and just add it to the bottles as and when needed
Other people half fill the bottle with cooled boiled water and when needed top up with hot boiled water n

Hi theguru75, I had to bottle feed my baby too due to breast feeding complications and the bottle feeding thing at first is a pain. At the beginning you should follow the instructions to the letter, baby's gut is quite fragile so to avoid any bad tummies you need to grin and bare it. You can get yourself prepared by anticipating when baby will want feeding, at the beginning it's every 2 hours, so boil the kettle about half hour before the feed is due. Then mix up the feed when he wants it and run the bottle under a cold tap or stand the bottle in cold water till its cool enough (takes roughly 10 minutes). Once baby is a bit older, 6-8 weeks maybe you can be a bit more relaxed about how long it's been since you boiled the kettle. By about 10 weeks my DS wasn't fussed whether his milk was warm or cool as long as he got it and he's never had a bad tummy or constipation. One thing you definitely can't do is prepare bottles and store them in the fridge. You can only use milk within 2 hours of it being prepared. So you can make a bottle up and take it out with you if you're going out. Hope this helps.
Oh yes and obviously it goes without saying (and you probably know) that breast is best and doesn't come with the above hassles. But also understand its not for everyone.

Please dont let the water cool for longer than 30mins before adding the powder. Water must be above 70° in order to sterilise the powder which isnt sterilised before beig tinned.

Guidelines still state you can make a refridgerate a days worth of feeds however (1) undrunk feeds must be binned after 24hrs and (2) once a bottle has been drunk from, that feed must be used or binned within the hour.

Another thing to note is that babies dont need warm.milk. On a hot summers day, they are actually nice given straight from the fridge.

At night you could use ready made cartons (snip, pour, drink, done), or get a refridgerated feed and sit in a bowl.of hot water / put in a bottle warmer / serve cold.

It is not important to boil thw water to sterilise the water its to sterilise the milk. Our water is safe to drink from the tap. The milk, however, needs 70° plus water on mixing.

I used to make up a bunch and pop them in the fridge, and nuke as needed.

Now with the new guidelines, I make them with this hotwater thing I have that spits out water at 70degrees, and chill if needed straightaway, or nuke from fridge. I remove the filter beforehand.

Apparently, is the powder that needs to be sterile, not the water.

2 years ago the guidelines said you could make them up in advance and chill in the fridge until required. It then took 7 minutes (of screaming baby) to warm up in a bottle warmer - I didn't use a microwave (I might with my next child).

Make sure who you ask is totally up to date on the guidelines (we had a neonatal nurse. she was pretty hot on it!!)

k

I used cartons for night feeds, room temperature straight into the bottle and feed. Understand that this isn't always thr cheapest option but I couldn't stand listening to DD scream while I tried to sort out powder etc.

I'd definitely go down this route again if breastfeeding doesn't work out this time either. I also always made a feed up in advance during the day and cooled it down straight away in a jug of ice and put in the fridge straight away. Always just one feed though.

I use a thermos flask with my boiled water in.

It stays warm enough to dissolve formula and give the baby a warm enough feed

When DS was just tiny we spent a fortune on ready made cartons for night time. Once he started to take 8oz (the cartons are 7oz) this became too expensive and as he was a little older (8 weeks) I started to make up night feeds in advance and store in fridge for a max if 12 hours.

We have an exceptionally hungry baby and he escalated to full on screaming very quickly, so this method was a matter of keeping our sanity and also stopping him from chojing himself taking his bottle too fast!

choking*

I have always made 3 bottles up at a time and stored in fridge until needed. It is totally unrealistic to make a fresh bottle up each time as the chances of a bottle being made up incorrectly because its 3am, baby is screaming, your desperate for baby not to wake neighbours etc, you will naturally rush to get the bottle made up. When my DD was still feeding during the night, I would make 3 bottles up before I went to bed and they would last 12 hours. DD is now 16 weeks old and doesn't feed in the night, I still make 3 bottles up before I go to bed as they will last 24 hours and means I don't have to worry about getting up extra early to prepare them!

I have never used pre-made cartons as some babies don't like them when they are used to freshly made bottles in the day! I never tried my DD on them as I didn't really think it was worth the risk in case she was sick after having it etc. Also, the cost of them is ridiculous!!!! Not worth it at all.

Have you looked at the Tommy Tippee perfect prep machine?
If we had another I would get one

Many thanks to all of you for your help and ideas

guru my msging is on the fritz.

It's a bosch hot water machine. Size of a coffee machine. About eighty squid but well handy. You won't need a kettle.

Hi guru. I have no idea why, but I can't pm any more. Yes, it's a filtrino. I take the filter out of to make bottles, I think I read somewhere babies shouldn't have filtered water?

I've made up 6 at a time with 2 kids and had no issues. The main reasons for making them up one at a time are people not doing it right.

You must ensure you have the correct number of scoops if you lose count pour it out and start again, you must store them correctly in the coldest part of the fridge and NEVER in the door of the fridge, and never keep bottles for more than 24 hours.

The World Health Organisation recommends ideally making up each bottle fresh but if not feasible recommends making up the bottles as directed but then cooling quickly and then storing in the fridge. This is what we have been doing with 15 week old DS.

I will link if I can find it