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?

I pre-made the night time bottles when I did the bedtime one, chilled quickly in ice water and put in the fridge, then my dh just got up and boiled the kettle and warmed it for a few minutes and it was ready in maybe 5 minutes time from when we woke up. It does mean needing two people as I stayed with our dd and changed her if necessary, but at that stage, it's only 1-2 feeds a night and anyone can survive getting up that much if they go to bed at a reasonable time (certainly I did when I went back to work and was getting up at 5am every day). The key really is cooling the bottles fast and getting them in the fridge so they're still fresh when you need them.

For the record, the reason you should use hot water with the formula powder is to kill any bacteria growing in the powder (it is just powdered milk pretty much after all). You're right you don't need to stress to much about sterilising bottles or other things at this age (I stopped sterilising at 5 months). But you need the hot water still to sterilise the formula. We are pretty lucky in the UK that there have been few problems with contaminated formula, but certainly elsewhere in Europe and in other parts of the world, babies have died from formula that wasn't sterilised. So you're right, OP, if you can make it with hot water, even if you cool and then re-heat, that is the safest, even if the risk is very, very slim; it's always possible if you end up with a dodgy one that is close to out of date or hasn't been stored properly by the store, etc.

I make 3 at a time with boiling water and put in fridge straight away, then take when needed. He likes them cold too! They are always used within 24 hours.

With my first baby I made every bottle fresh, while he was crying for it.. took so long to cool. What a faff.. you live and learn!

Well I startet to give my boy good night formula from Hipp. He slept until 6o clock in the morning with it, so I did´nt need to make a bottle in the night. You can check it out on myorganicformula.com/collections/hipp-organic-formula . Perhaps it works for you as well.

Let say 6 oz bottle

boil kettle fill bottle with 4oz of water leave to cool

Go to bed

Baby wakes

Boil kettle

Poor 2oz into another bottle, run under cold tap to cool it slightly. Add powder and shake. Add cold water from other bottle.

Basically what a perfect prep does.

Just make it up in advance, put it in the fridge and heat it up when needed.
We've been doing that (with 'pfb') since she was born, and it's fine. It's what most of my formula feeding friends have done, and it's fine. Faffing round with a thermos is just making life trickier for you, but the difference in risk, especially at 6 months would be negligible, if at all. And don't wait for 30 mins in the day for the kettle to cook - they just say that so you aren't handling boiling water, just like you do when you make a cup of tea or water, and to cover their backsides in case some idiot gives it straight to their baby.