Night time formula feeding - how?

[MrsBriteSide]

DD is 6 months and I'm coming to the end of breastfeeding her. She now drinks bottles of formula during the day. My question is: without having a perfect prep machine, how do you make up a warm bottle of formula in the night? Instructions are to boil 1 litre of water and wait 30 mins to mix which I do when at home during the day. I can't face doing that in the small hours when DD is crying for a feed. She's only waking once in the night now and she's chomping on my nipple (ouch) which is why I think breastfeeding is coming to an end for us.

How does everyone else make a warm bottle in the middle of the night?

Could you afford cartons of ready made, much easier for through the night. I wouldn't have a clue now DC 1 you made 6 up in the fridge, dc2 you stored the water in the fridge then dc3 you made them up fresh so I just used cartons for night feeds

The Perfect Prep machine I'm afraid. I can see why you may not want to get one if you've come this far without, but you're likely to be making formula for another six months so might be worth the investment? I don't know how I'd have survived without ours!

I'm not sure if this is totally the best way because I'm quite new to it myself, but I was wondering the exact same thing.

What I do is make the bottle in the evening with fresh kettle etc.
Its cooled enough by the time I go up to bed.
Put it in a Tommy Tippee bottle thermos by the bed to keep it at a steady temp.
That way it's still at a good temp when I wake up to use it.

Like I say, somebody better informed than me might point out an issue with that, but I haven't thought of one so far.

We had a perfect prep but when we stayed away at weekends we used a thermos of boiling water and a flask of cooled boiled water. Put an inch of boiling water in the bottle, add pre measured powder, top up with the cold water to the line that you've already drawn on the bottle in marker pen from a previously made up bottle!

You can mimic a perfect prep. Thermos of boiling water, flask of cooled boiled water. The hot water needs to be at least 70°C to sterilised the powder, and you need a decent amount to ensure all powder dissolves in the hot water. I used to put about half the total volume of water in from thermos, add powder, shake and add the rest from cooled boiled water.

You can buy a perfect prep secondhand for £20 so I'd do that!

It sounds like a faff, but could you have cooled water ready in a bottle with the powder next to it. Then have a flask of hot water and a jug as well - pop the bottle in hot water to warm it up a bit.
Alternatively, I just got my DS used to having room temperature milk so I didn't have to worry about warming it up in the middle of the night!

I used to make up the bottle as normal, cool it down in a bowl of water and stick it at the back of the fridge. When DD woke up, I then warmed it up by standing it in a jug of hot water

The water needs to be at a high temp to make sure the formula is ok. You can use a mix of just boiled water and cold tap water to get a good temp.

Measure a third or half measure of boiling water in a bottle. Transfer to the feeding bottle and add formula, mix well. Measure the other portion of water (cold) into the first bottle. Transfer to the feeding bottle, shake and you should have warm milk.

Don’t put the cold water straight into the bottle that has the formula, without measuring the correct volume in an empty bottle. Because the overall volume in the feeding bottle will be formula plus water, you can’t make it up to full volume with the cold water as you will end up with too little water for the formula. I can explain further if this is confusing!

Thanks for your speedy replies. The formula packet says to use within 2 hours and as she's PFB I wouldn't be comfortable leaving the bottle sat in a thermos waiting hours for her to wake up. I reckon I'll try the thermos of hot water plus bottle of cooled boiled water ready to go. Hopefully in my bleary eyed state I can figure out how much hot water etc to pour in and mix!

I thought you couldn't make up bottles and keep them for longer than an hour before they spoil or keep them pre-made in the fridge to warm up again, I'm 9 year out of date though but curious as a baby could be sleeping sometime soon

We used to give cold bottles at night.

WHO top advice is to make up fresh, but they do say you can make them up with 70c water and then refrigerate for up to 24 hours so we did that.

If only 1 feed at night. I would 100% use ready made formula....

You need to mix water above 70 degrees with the formula powder to kill any bacteria in the powder. You can then top up the bottle with cooled boiled water that you boiled earlier and stored in the fridge. As long as you add enough over 70 degrees powder to mix with the formula, and as long as you add the correct total volume of water. So the bottle will be lukewarm after combining hot water and cooled boiled water.

So you would boil kettle (or use hot water in a thermos flask), mix a small amount with the powder (but enough to fully mix), then complete the bottle with cooled water that you boiled earlier.

Perfect Prep machine basically does this. However not recommended by NHS as concerned it doesn't use enough hot water to reliably sterilise the formula powder.

However if the reason you are stopping breastfeeding is nipple biting, this typically passes quickly. It usually means that baby has a new tooth coming in and they are trying to figure out how to feed again. Unlatch them with your finger straight away and say "no" firmly. Mine v quickly stopped biting. Whatever you do don't yank them off as that is more painful!

Room temp cartons worked for me.
With ds1 we added formula to room temp water but I know that’s not advised anymore.

Make up two (one for night, one for morning) and put in the fridge. I used to make room temp in the microwave and then give a shake to avoid any hot spots. Good guide is here

www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/micro/PIF_Bottle_en.pdf

Oh yes sorry you can use normal tap water for the cool water, you don't need to cool boiled water as she is weaning now and presumably drinking tap water!

we used the cartons at night. it's 65p if only one feed.

If using powder the water has to be hot enough to kill any germs in the formula. I think waiting 30 mins is to make it less risky to spill/burn yourself or baby. I made it with freshly boiled water then cooled it as quick as possible (in a large bowl of cold water) it saves time but still takes 5-10 mins so cartons much better at night time.

Thanks hopeless, that's what I used to do with the pre boiled cooled water so it hasn't changed really from my last DC. Seems the quickest option

Apart from cartons but wanted to know as back up thanks

For my PFB I slept with a carton of formula nestled against me so it was body temp for feeding. I’ve no idea why as she had room temp carton formula during the day.

@LML83 unfortunately DD will only drink Aptamil Profutura which is £1 a go ready made! And she spits it out at room temp so I have to put the ready made stuff in the bottle warmer for about 5 mins before serving which I'm sure will feel an age if done in the small hours of the night. All those £1s add up...

Make a bottle fresh with boiling water before bed and store it in the fridge.

Put some boiling water in a flask.

When baby wakes up put the bottle in the hot water from the flask to warm it up. (Or use electric bottle warmer if you have one. Microwave is also ok as long as you keep the power low and shake every ten seconds or so to avoid hot spots).

Bottle was prepared with boiling water so powder sterilised, kept cold in the fridge so won’t go ‘off’ and then warmed up so it’s more pleasant for drinking.

I think this is the simplest way.

Pissing about measuring hot water and cold water, or waiting for kettles to boil then cool down is going to be a pain in the middle of the night.

@hopelesslydevotedtoGU it's like her sucking technique has changed and it's really uncomfortable for me all of a sudden. However, she has got the tell tale red cheeks of teething so maybe that's causing the chomping. At this stage I'm pretty ambivalent about carrying on breastfeeding.

We made them hot, chilled, and put into the fridge. If they woke for a feed at night we would get one out of the fridge and run it under a warm tap for a min or two to take the edge of the cold off and feed. We never served a warm bottle in the day either so they got used to coolish feeds.