Ok own up, who pre-makes their bottles??

[blondebaby111]

I've been a real stickler and make all my dd who's nearly 7 months bottles up from scratch. However I have friends who are on there 2nd and 3rd babies who pre make and store in fridge. I must admit after a 20 minute screaming match this morning because we got up Late and was then late getting bottle ready im really considering doing the same. I look back to the early days where I was bottle making from scratch at 3am and I really don't know how I did it and if we have another I may pre make, what's your views and what do u do??

Can it really be that harmful???

I do that Mother, but, only if I really need to, and have only ever done it out of laziness and I my really recently, so he's that much bigger

16 months here and I still make his bottles in the evening and keep them in the fridge. (He is on Neocate hence the still on formula) when he was tiny I used to make 9 little bottles up, they took up half the fridge!

What's worrying is it of 30 or so people in my antenatal group there were only 2/3 people how used hot water the rest used cold as that's what everyone else/their mum/ the hv told them to do!

For a 6oz feed we add formula powder to 2oz boiling water, mix it up and then add 4oz of cooled boiled water from the fridge.

I seriously don't get the idea that making up bottles when needed is a faff or difficult.

I used to make next day's the night before

We had those Playtex disposable bottles (plastic bags in rigid holders) so the water couldn't be too hot, but I used to keep a container of cold pre-boiled water in the fridge to mix with the hot so the powder would dissolve ok. Then for a small baby I would give them a 30-sec blast in the microwave & a good shake; older babies had cold!

My last baby is 21 so I'm sure the rules have changed since then, but we had very few upset tummies.

If you think about it it's all about minimising risk, and usually that risk is about bacteria. Milk is a really good environment for bacteria to multiply, and 21 to 47C is the "danger zone" for any foodstuff WRT bacteria multiplying.

So you want to minimise the chance for bacteria to be introduced in the first place. You wash and sterilise the bottles, you use a clean knife or the in-tub leveller thing, you don't reuse scoops from another tub, you don't take the scoop out of the tub except for a couple of seconds to deposit the milk, you don't leave the tub uncovered, you use boiled water.

Second, you want to nuke any bacteria there is in the powder which is why you use hot water to make the bottles.

Thirdly reduce the chance for bacteria to grow. Don't let bottles hang around in that 21-47 degree zone for any longer than necessary. Cool rapidly, heat only just before feeding, don't keep them at room temperature, throw refrigerated, untouched milk away after 24h, throw any milk which has been partially drunk away after 1 hour (in case of bacteria from the baby's mouth). Ideally make bottles up as and when you need them.

If you bear these things in mind you can see that common sense tells you which things are more risky than others.

How many babies have become really really ill through making up bottles in advance? Where do they get their guidelines from?

For years and years and years people made bottles in advance and, to my knowledge, no baby died from it !

Several babies did die in France and Belgium, which is why the guidelines changed.

I'm not sure how many babies have become ill, but at least one MNer's baby got salmonella from formula, and hospital admissions for D&V are much higher for formula fed babies.

I clearly missed the memo on this one and dd is only 18mo.. we boiled the kettle, poured the water into all of her bottles, left them on the side to cool/ probably up to 24 hours, added the formula to a bottle and shook....... I need to read up before dc2 arrives!

The instructions are actually on the side of the carton - certainly Cow & Gate even says "because the powder is not sterile, failure to make feeds correctly can make your baby ill".

If you make them up at 70ºC cool and store in the fridge, thats surely far safer than tired mother risking burning herself, denaturing the milk and risking feeding the baby insufficently cooled milk, faffing about in a sleep deprived state and rushing because the baby has woken the whole street.

Yes there is a very small risk to very young and prem babies, but thats still mostly from not using 70º water.

If you kill the bugs, they can't multiply and if you cool store the milk corectly in sterile bottles any unkilled bacteria won't multiply.

We only used ready made formula for DD. By the time we thought of changing to powder, I did the calculations of how much we might save (given that we would still want ready made for going out) and couldn't be bothered to change.

Not sure what we will do this time.

Odd that guidelines changed in the UK for babies who died in France and Belgium, but didn't change in either of those countries.

IME (which is totally anecdotal) my friends who made up bottles with cool boiled water had babies who had minor stomach bugs more often than others who made up with hot or breastfed. I wonder if it's that minor stomach bugs seem par for the course so nobody realises that it may have been caused by the formula. Of course in the 21st century in Britain your average stomach bug is not a cause for concern even in small babies.

WHO guidelines changed in response Bertie, some countries adopted the new guidelines and some didn't.

If you make them up at 70ºC cool and store in the fridge, thats surely far safer than tired mother risking burning herself, denaturing the milk and risking feeding the baby insufficently cooled milk, faffing about in a sleep deprived state and rushing because the baby has woken the whole street.

Yes there is a very small risk to very young and prem babies, but thats still mostly from not using 70º water.

If you kill the bugs, they can't multiply and if you cool store the milk corectly in sterile bottles any unkilled bacteria won't multiply.

If you make them up at 70ºC cool and store in the fridge, thats surely far safer than tired mother risking burning herself, denaturing the milk and risking feeding the baby insufficently cooled milk, faffing about in a sleep deprived state and rushing because the baby has woken the whole street.

Yes there is a very small risk to very young and prem babies, but thats still mostly from not using 70º water.

If you kill the bugs, they can't multiply and if you cool store the milk corectly in sterile bottles any unkilled bacteria won't multiply.

I had my babies back in the Dark Ages, when it was perfectly acceptable to make up 24-hours-worth of bottles at a go, and store them in the fridge. We didn't even have to make up the bottles with min 70- degree water (not as far as I recall, anyhow). I formula-fed all three dses and didn't have a single problem.

You didn't have to use all these ridiculous car seats back in the day either.

You did, at the point when I had my babies, fledermaus.

I did, my children are 9,8 and 6 now ... we're hoping to start to TTC again next year but I bet all the guidelines have changed a lot.

I don't know how people manage. It would drive me insane to have to make up bottles as needed with a baby screaming for their feed.

I mix fed my older ones and we used to make up a big jug of milk for the day. Guidelines were you could keep for 24 hours in the fridge.

DCs 4 & 5 were bf but sometimes had a bottle and by then I was in the fortunate position to be able to afford to buy cartons of milk. Bloody love them!

Very expensive if you are exclusively ff though.

fled I have had 5 DCs spread out over 22 years so things have changed a lot over the years. I do follow new guidelines and read research etc but I can see why older mothers are a bit at the idea of making up bottles in the new way.

None of mine ever had a single episode of D&V whilst FF.

I was scrupulous with making up and sterilising feeds.

So I am not dismissing the new guidelines at all. I just wouldn't want to do it and can see why others think its a faff.

SDTG got there first. Her way of bottle preparation was the norm when my DC were born too. There also wasn't quite so much stress about giving the remaining half of a bottle of formula a couple of hours after it had first been offered if you were out and about. Cartons weren't so easy to obtain then and were considerably more expensive than powder if you were exclusively formula feeding, as I chose to.

I wouldn't hesitate to suggest to my own daughters that they made formula up in advance and stored in the fridge just as I did.

I made up 2 or 3 bottles at a time, following the current guidelines & storing in the bottom of the fridge for approx 12 hours.

And I reheated each bottle in the microwave

Me..... I'd make 24 hrs worth of bottles as per the instructions on the box (70 degree c water then radpid chill in cold water) and keep in the fridge until needed. I even zapped the bottles in the microwave to take the nip off when DS wanted a feed. When they are little little and could demand a feed at any time this was the most flexible system.

DS is now 9 months and very preditable so I steralise 4 bottles, make 2 as above - 1 for the dream feed and 1 for the first feed of the day and store all bottles in the fridge. I make his day bottles up when needed as I know when that is!

Roll on not needing any more bottles!

Oh goodness, of course you warmed bottles in the microwave. In fact, for a time, I think ours was used for nothing else!

Some of the guidelines make me go . I did know to shake the bottle so there are no hotspots and to test it before giving it to m babies. I didn't need telling not to use the microwave at all, as though I was some kind of numpty!