HELP! Formula advice

[thesunshinestoday]

Really struggling with the best way to make up formula feeds. Breast feeding wasn't an option and baby has been on ready made baby milks for the past three months. Have recently started using formula powder and it's such a long process

1/ adviced against the perfect prep machine by NCT and health visitor. Have read many stories about mould, hot water not been hot enough etc. not sure what to do

2/ making a fresh feed at the time- how is this even possible?! No regular feeding pattern and the whole process takes about 40 mins. Does the water need to cool down- what does up to 30 minutes even mean?! Can I use it after five minutes?

3/ have thought about doing a hybrid PP method- half boiling water- add formula- leave a few minutes and then add cooled down boiled water that's been in the fridge. How long can this be used? I presume 12 hours should be fine?

Do I just get a PP machine?! HELP!

You could just pre make and put them in the fridge and use as and when. Especially easy if your baby gets used to having milk cold 👍

Sorry to jump on ! But we have the brezza , and haven’t used it yet , as we’re unsure on what water to use ! We bought a Brita filter and was going to use tap water that had been through the filter in there , but now I’m unsure after reading everything🤦🏻‍♀️Please can you advise ? Xxx

I echo all of rhe above - get the perfect prep or baby bezza. I got the PP and have never looked back.

If you can time babys feeds so it's possible the old way that's great but my baby is totally unpredictable with feeds - always has been and honestly the only hunger cue I get sometimes is immediate screaming so not an option for me

I was using the ready made only but when baby started going onto 4 5 oz one 200ml bottle is gone in nearly 1 feed. It was getting ridiculous what I was spending!

Got a PP - love it. Still have a few ready made in the cupboard for going out etc but a solid investment 👌

We use filtered water as our water at home is hard, so it means the filters last longer. Normal tap water is fine.

I actually think it’s pretty awful that the NHS tell you not to use a perfect prep if you’re formula feeding. You absolutely should use one, OP.

Agree totally. I was told by the HV not to use one too.

If it was that unsafe it would not be on the shelves to buy. Period.

The NHS need to constantly cover themselves though so if something did go wrong (I've no idea how that could happen) you can't go back to them and say they said it was fine.

Thank you! So will our tap water that has been in the brita filter jug be ok for the brezza ? I had PP with my 3 others , but decided to go for the brezza this time! Xx

Yeah thats fine, sorry for the late reply, in Canada and trying to persuade our baby to sleep.

I've done a fair bit of reading about the Perfect Prep and my understanding is that the NHS don't know that it's unsafe, but Tommee Tippee haven't shared their evidence that shows that the hot shot is enough to kill potential bacteria in the formula powder. So without the evidence to prove its safety they can't endorse it. Clearly a lot of people use them, but personally I preferred to just pre make and store in the fridge for up to 24 hours, which the NHS say is acceptable and was the advice until recently.

I don't know much about the rules around product safety, but generally I don't have enough faith to think that 'it wouldn't be sold if it wasn't safe', there have been plenty of products sold that were later proved to be unsafe!

Just to add that any milk sold in a shop has to be pasturized, including formula. Adding boiling water isn't going to make the milk less nutritious, it's already had that heat applied during manafacture.

Heat treated yes, but not to 100 degrees like boiling water would do

www.dairycouncil.co.uk/who-we-are/ni-dairy/field-to-fridge/pasteurisation

OP this document goes into all the detail around why the NHS doesn’t recommend PP machines and comes up with an alternative solution at the bottom which you may want to consider if you’re not happy after reading it:
elht.nhs.uk/application/files/4915/5533/6985/Statement_on_formula_preparation_machines_Nov_2016.pdf