Formula Feeding help please!

[TheHermitCrab]

Hi guys, been combination feeding my 2 week old since birth, but I'm starting to feed her more and more formula and I am just confused about the preparation of the powder online! (I've been using the pricey pre-made bottles)

Sooo I know you can't pre make the formula and store. But obviously boiling a litre of water and waiting half an hour each feed seems a farce!

Am I right in thinking I can boil a litre of water, measure all the water into sterilised bottles, then store in the fridge and just add the powder as and when. Is that the correct method?

Thanks people!!

OK, probably slightly unhelpful but actually meant from a financial point of view on this occasion. I am certainly not a bf Nazi and gave extensive ff advice from personal experience, as you can see ...

I am amazed nobody has picked up on my Fruit Shoot bottle moment, frankly

Naw, I could see myself doing similar if needs must.

I do agree about there being no need to spend a fortune on a special gadget for making up formula bottles. It really is not rocket science to make up six bottles in the evening ready for the following day.

BoffinMum

Congratulations on being the first person to mention BF and being smug about it too.

My baby is still having breast milk but not enough from me for medical reasons so I'm having to top but, but also do some full feeds in formula ( so i want to use the powder for the full feeds as the pre made bottles I'm topping up with are very pricey).

I'm trying my best and I am completely fucking gutted and disheartened that I can't BF exclusively, nothing has gone the way I wanted with my birth, or how I planned to feed my child. But luckily I have a beautiful health daughter.

So If I could save money, and my guilt. I would. But thanks for your input.

If you use mumto3dc method that's essentially what the perfect prep does so I would do that. Means it's made fresh but you're not waiting for ages

Thanks everyone else for your help! I will add the stage of making sure i pop the bottles in the sink in cold water before putting them in the fridge.

Checked the back of my fridge and it's 4degrees so just right :) I won't be storing up 24 hours worth as I won't need that much formula. Probably 2 or 3 bottles to be able to grab when needed.

I'm confused... The side of my milk carton says to boil water and then cool for 30 mins and then make up the feed...

Does anyone know why it has to be a litre of water and i cant just boil what i need?

I'm confused... The side of my milk carton says to boil water and then cool for 30 mins and then make up the feed... nobody is debating that? This tgread is about pre making it for later x

oops sorry

I've never heard of the litre thing but that doesn't mean it isn't right!!

With my first we just boiled what we needed and then made the bottles for the day.

We use the Perfect Prep, here. It's expensive but often on sale and I can't recommend it enough.

Our other method is/was (don't make as many bottles now DD is nearly 11mo) to get a flask filled with boiling water, and either another flask or sterile bottle filled with cooled boiled. Fill up most of the bottle with boiling water, add formula and top off with the cold. Then cool it down if necessary.

I'd imagine the litre is just to do with how quickly it cools down? As in if you boiled half that and left it for 30 minutes it'd be too cold.

But I don't know for sure.

bananapickle84
It says a litre on the box of formula, and on most bottle feeding information I can find x

I really can't afford the perfect prep. As for storing different bottles of boiled and cooled water, for all the faffing I'd just make it from scratch.

Was really looking for where I could store everything pre prepared for a "grab and go" method.

It seems most people pre make the formula and store at the back of the fridge without any issues so I'll stick to that :)

You can just boil what you need Hermit. I usually boil extra 'cos I usually make a cup of tea at the same time, but how much you boil doesn't matter.

I feel like making formula is being massively over-complicated here. It is very simple to do.

• Put fresh-from-the-tap water into kettle, switch it on to boil. Make bottles within half an hour of it boiling.
• Sterilise some bottles (I tend to do four at a time).
• Add the required amount of water from kettle into bottles.
• Add the required number of scoops of formula powder
• Add lid and swirl/shake
• Put in main part of fridge straight away
• Use within 24 hours

Anyone making up several bottles a day and itching to spend extra money, rather than the perfect prep machine waste of money I'd recommend the Clevascoop at £6.

FATEdestiny I suppose it's knowing how far you can stray from the guidelines that may be a little over cautious.

I.E if we were following the guidelines we wouldn't but putting anything in the fridge and having this discussion :)

That cleverscoop just looks like a measuring device? But All formula comes with measuring scoops - what's special about it?

I'm guessing they say to boil a litre because they've calculated that a litre of boiling water will take 30 minutes to cool to the magic 70 degrees.

Nothing special about the Clevascoop. But if you are making up six 7oz bottles a day, instead of going:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
1, 2, 3, 4... "Yes, you can have an apple"... oh what number was I on? Urm, I think 5, 6, 7.
1, 2, 3... "stop falling out you two"... 4, 5... "I said stop falling out, come here." Urm, Urm, 7?.
1, 2, 3... "I said come here and stop falling out"... 4, 5, 6... "thank you, now what was that all about?" 7.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
... "No, you cannot have another apple" 1, 2, 3 "I said no, you've already had an apple" 4, 5.. "yes, you can have an apple because you've not had yours yet"... oh what number was I on? four I think, OK, 5, 6, 7.
Done!

It saves all the counting out. Just one scoop, into bottle. That's it.

Not a massive big deal, but when you have 4 children and lots of distractions like me, £6 worth of a gizmo is quite worth it.

OP I did mine by adding boiling water to sterilised bottles, chilling, then adding powder and microwaving to get up to temperature. Surprised someone didn't call social services on me . I have twins though so you get away with a lot.

I know some people who did theirs by preparing like a litre of formula at a time and storing it in the fridge. But I thought that was a faff because you then need a large sterilisable container to store it in.

I have a perfect prep, but if we are away from home staying somewhere else like a different military camp I do the following.

1 flask of hot boiled water, 1 flask of cool/cold boiled water.

make up feeds as required as follows:

measure out powered in to sterile bottle
add 2oz of hot water from flask
add 4oz of cold water from flask
(in making 6oz bottles at the moment)
shake bottle (flash cool under cold tap if too hot)
feed screaming baby .

every 4 hours I replace the hot flask with fresh boiled water to keep it above 70 and top up the cooled flask with the old hot now cold water.

pretty simple and quick and no keeping of feeds.

For 6 months I made from fresh as thought I was doing everything right but that is just nonsense! When dd was 6 months I made them up for the day with boiling water in sterilised bottles and stored in the fridge. I have awful memories of rocking a screaming baby at 3am while frantically trying to get a bottle to cool, so not practical and pretty dangerous too!!

If I ever have another baby I will remake from the beginning

My apologies Hermit. Please forgive me.

The 1 litre thing is because they have calculated that it takes 1 litre 30 mins to cool to the required 70 degrees. If you only boil what you need then wait 30 mins it will be too cold to kill the bacteria in the powder.

I generally made them up when needed, like a PP said it didn't take much longer to do that than it did to take a bottle out of the fridge and warm it up. Occasionally I made in advance, flash cooled under the tap then put in the back of the fridge but always used it within 12 hours max.

I generally made them up when needed, like a PP said it didn't take much longer to do that than it did to take a bottle out of the fridge and warm it up

Waiting for a kettle to boil and waiting half an hour and then making formula with a screaming baby is a LOT longer than taking a bottle from the fridge and warming under a hot tap.. a lot longer :/

Agree with hermit. In a perfect world food for babies or grown ups would be made to order. But in reality it may not be practical.