How did you do night feeds

[Nova324]

Hi,

Im 23+4 weeks pregnant FTM so might be a bit early for this kind of question but I'm trying to get myself as prepped as poss!
so we will be bottle feeding baby (please dont have a go at me for not BF) I understand it will be easy to make bottles during the day but wondering what everyone else did for night feeds?

I've read so many different things. I understand that the formula needs added to the boiling water to kill bacteria. so could i make these bottles up before bed and maybe feed to baby at room temp? i guess this would work for going out aswell?

another option I've seen is getting a flask of boiling water to make up during the night? I just worry about how long it takes to cool with a crying baby who will obviously be hungry

Thanks in advance for any suggestions

If you add the powder first and then the hot shot (as recommended on the newer night and day machines anyway) it is hot enough. If you add the water and then measure out the powder, there is a chance that it would have cooled below the required temp; but you'd have to be fairly slow at adding it for this to happen anyway. They are fine if used correctly, with the official filters, the recommended clean cycles are carried out and you use sterilised bottles.

Perfect preps aren't /shouldn't be recommended by NHS & HVs as they don't get to the correct temp to sterilise the powder properly.

Bottles shouldn't be made in advance, they last max 2 hours from when they are made whether they are in the fridge or not.

Safest option is to do a hot flask and cold flask yourself, which has the bonus of saving the expense of the perfect prep. Or buy the pre made formula.

Obviously lots of people use perfect preps and have no issues, the risk is small but there is still a risk with them/how they do it.

I don't remember if perfect prep machines were about when my dc were babies (youngest is 7) or if I was just oblivious to them but I do remember there being a problem highlighted in the media a while ago about them getting mouldy in the water pipes and then contaminating the milk. Whether they've sorted that or not I don't know but it'd be enough to put me off using one now if I were to have another baby.

@TwoZeroTwoZero only in machines where the user's hadn't put in the correct filters, plus it was found to be carbon deposits which are harmless.

@Christmadtree the NHS provide zero support for bottle feeding, people are going to use perfect preps, so whilst not advocating them they should be advising people on how to use them correctly. If you add the powder first and then the hot shot it will be the correct temp. Because the amount of water is fairly small in the hot shot it cools quickly, which means if you do water and then powder by the time the last scoop is in it might not be 70 degrees still; but issue resolved doing it that way. Using a kettle isn't a perfect science either though, too hot and elements in the powder can break down, and cooled too much and the 70 degree problem arises again.

Another recommendation for a Perfect Prep machine. With my first DC I loved the PP into the nursery at bedtime, this meant that during night feeds DC & I would leave our bedroom and go to the nursery to make and complete the feed.

This time around I don't have a spare nursery so the PP remains in the kitchen and I pop downstairs, make up the feed and bring it up to our bedroom.

It's so much quicker than doing it with a bottle and even when sleep deprived is so easy you can't do it incorrectly!