Does anyone make formula with cooled boiled water?

[Shootingstar2289]

I am now bottle feeding my 8 week old. I have been making bottles in advance, cooling them and storing in fridge until needed and I warm up. I keep them for no longer than 24 hours.

However, I have a 4 year old who is a very light sleeper and sometimes wakes when I get up and go downstairs to warm a bottle... And he has just started school so cannot lose any sleep.

Trying to think of a way I can make bottles at night without going down stairs. She wakes for 1 feed around 4/5. Has anyone made formula with coiled boiled water. Was thinking of using the milk powder dispensers..

Any tips?

Ready made cartons?

That isn't recommended. Could you afford ready to use liquid formula? That's what we did with DD1 at night v

It is the milk powder that can get contaminated
The water needs to be at least 70 degrees and then you add the powder to the hot water
You can then cool the whole contents if you need to and then reheat as required

I used the cartons during the night at room temperature. Alternatively, you could have a flask of hot water, a flask of cool water, put a small amount of hot water into the bottle and mix the powder in, then top it up with cool to make it cooler. But why bother when you can get ready made cartons?

You're supposed to use very hot water (at 70 degrees) to kill the bacteria in the powder. You could buy some of the ready made cartons of liquid formula for the night waking or buy a travel kettle for upstairs and add half hot water to the powder and (once mixed) half cool.

It has to be boiling water as the powder isn't sterilised. Seconding the suggestion for ready made cartons. Or one of those tommy tippee perfect prep machines set up upstairs, though they are hideously expensive.

If your baby won't take room temp milk, then try sleeping with the bottle of readymade formula snuggled against you. It will then be close to body temperature.

My method for doing this is:

To make a 5oz bottle...

Boil kettle and fill a bottle with 3oz of water. Lid on, cool & store in fridge
Fill thermos with boiling water
When needed, take a fresh bottle, fill with 2oz of water from thermos.
Add powder, lid on, shake
Add the cold water from bottle in fridge
Lid on, shake

Bottle good to go.

I guess if you prepare the cold water in advance & you have a cool bag you could take all this up to bed with you to save you having to make a trip down the stairs

My DS used to take bottles of expressed milk straight from the fridge. He didn't mind it cold. He also had room temp ready made formula and body temp straight from the boob. As long as it was milk he wasn't fussed what temperature it was or where it came from. I realise not all babies will be like that but it might be worth trying it from the fridge?

What LittleMiss said is what I meant about hot then cold.

Buy a perfect prep machine - it will be the best money you have ever spent.

Beeps quite loudly, but you can stick duct tape over the speaker bit.

I do the hot water/cold water if we're going out for the day as DS doesnt seem to like the ready made stuff much...

I would stress the importance of ensuring you have the correct measurements of cool water ready in a separate bottle as the displacement caused by adding the powder makes it look like you have more water than you actually do IYSWIM?

Or as Manor said, by a Perfect Prep - I got mine from Amazon for £45 with free delivery

If she's only waking once (jealous) can you afford a carton a day of ready made formula?

We left the cold bottle on the windowsill in a flask bag so it stayed cold and then used a plug in bottle warmer when she woke for her feed.

I used a method similar to LittleMiss but changed the proportions slightly so that the water didn't need to be in the fridge - for a 6oz bottle I found that 4 oz at room temp and 2 oz hot made a perfect bottle temp. This method is full safe (a lot safer than making in advance) provided that a) your thermos is a good one and capable of keeping the water hot enough (I used a thermometer to check at the beginning) and b)you add ALL of the powder to the hot water and shake well to ensure all the powder is exposed to water above 70 degrees. Making a bottle takes less than a minute that was and I would bring all the necessary bits upstairs with me - enough for 3 bottles a night at one point, thanks DS!

Have a look at the WHO guidelines. They state that where it is not possible to mix the powder with water of 70degC, it is ok to mix with drinking water that has not been heated. It's not ideal but it is acceptable. Formula made this way should not be heard, and must be discarded within one hour of making up. I made all the bottles for DS1 and DS2 like this because it was what everyone else was doing and I hadn't read up on it. No one told me different. Now with DS3 I'm using a perfect prep machine. I find it impossible to use one handed though, so for night feeds I make a couple of bottles up in advance and microwave them as needed (which I can do one handed). I know you're not meant to microwave them, but I shake them well as I go back upstairs.

My DN was born prem. My DSis was told to make the milk up using cold previously boiled water by the midwives in hospital The poor thing would often have green poos and seem to be in pain.
Because the midwives told her she wouldn't listen to me when I told her the risks.

Not "heard", heated

Nightfall did you ever check how much the powder reduced the temperature of the 2oz of water? Was it still above 70 after the powder was added and mixed in?

Yes Gold, it only reduced by a few degrees - though it cools rapidly once in the bottle so you have to move fast. I usually aimed to have the water about 80 degrees, add the powder and shake and depending on the exact proportions it would cool the milk/mixture to around 74-76 degrees, still quite acceptable. That's a good point though and for that reason when he was on smaller bottles (3 oz) I did more hot water (still 2 oz) and less cold - 1 oz but had it in the fridge if possible and held it under running water to cool as necessary.

That's good to know, Nightfall.

It sounds like you've got a good system there.

Another vote for the perfect prep machine well worth every penny

I always end up as confused as when I started on these threads. No longer have any idea why I do what I do.

I boil water and add 30ml to bottle. Add powder and shake. Then add cooled boiled water from the fridge to make up to 180ml. Having watched the perfect prep machine in action, I can't see what it does that would significantly reduce the faffing around. You still have to put the powder in anyway.

In your situation I would take two flasks to bed - one with boiled water over 70 degrees and one with cooled boiled water. I would make it up the way I have described. And hope for the best! The only thing that would worry me is not knowing if flasks are a breeding ground for bacteria...

Featherandblack - if you are making 6 oz of formula, you're not using enough water. The powder takes up space, so you should be topping up to whatever volume 180ml/6oz of water plus 6 scoops of formula makes.

We've got a perfect prep machine. It means no measuring of water or recalculating proportions when you change the number of scoops you use. In the time it takes to do its thing, I do other stuff.