Preparing formula on the go

[Newmumsar93]

I have a 2 week old formula fed baby and I’m finding it stressful figuring out the best way to prepare formula on the go. There are so many conflicting bits of advise from NHS, formula manufacturers and other Mums.

Before having the baby I always thought that I could prepare bottles of formula in the morning before going out for the day and then warm them up as needed but my midwife says this is wrong. I’ve been advised one way to do it is by taking 2 flasks out, one with boiling water and one with cooled boiled water so I can make it the correct temperature… midwife also says this is wrong.

I bought the Tommee Tippee flask and bottle bags and on the instructions they are geared towards pre-preparing bottles at home.

NHS advises to just take out pre-measured formula and make it up fresh with hot water and then dunk bottle in cold to cool it but how would this work if baby is crying for a feed in public???

It feels like such a minefield and I’m at the point where I daren’t go out with baby because I’m scared I won’t be able to manage the feeding 😔 it’s so scary reading about bacteria from formula and it making baby poorly so I just don’t know what to do for the best!

I think things have changed as I used to sterilise and then fill a few hotties at a time with boiled water & then let it cool. I would then add powder to cool water. I had a thing with space for three portions of powder.

Best tip I ever had was to only give room temperature milk. So I never had to heat it up & it stayed fresh.

Mine were never unwell & the milk was never left lying around. Bottles were always made fresh with sterilised water. However I believe advice is now to add powder to hot water.

I do wonder if it's a ruse to make it harder so you decide breast feeding is easier.

It’s a long time since I was in this position, but you used to be able to buy a packet of sterile, longlife, ready made up formula that you simply pour into a bottle and feed if you are out and about. Presumably the stuff still exists?

The last point in your message is something I’ve thought about too!! It’s so strange that the advice seems to have made things more difficult than they used to be rather than easier and more practical!

It's a pain in the arse is the honest answer 🤣

Basically the formula needs to be mixed with boiling water to kill any bacteria in the FORMULA not the water. I'm saying that because I think a lot of people think if you boil the water first then it doesn't matter when you mix it with the formula which isn't accurate.

I used to either (a) make a bottle using boiling water just before I went out which meant that by the time it had cooled (about an hour) it safe for baby to drink. Note however that ideally you shouldn't let the baby drink a bottle made longer than 2 hours ago UNLESS it has been stored at the back of the fridge. (B) take a bottle of boiling water in a thermos out with me along with pre-prepared and measured formula and mix it whilst out but you will need to ensure the bottle cools enough before you give it to baby (c) buy pre made bottles of formula and take those out with me but some babies are fussy about temperature so I used to also have to take boiling water/bottle warmer to be able to warm the bottle whilst out.

Also don't forget you need to sterilise the bottles at home first and they will only stay sterilised for 24 hours with a lid on.

This is the main faff with formula feeding but you'll find what works for you!!

While they were so little I just took out ready made formula. It can be stressful as a FTM getting out and this just took one stress away!

As they got older (and I chilled out a bit 😂) I did lots of things for feeding on the go:

Sometimes just timed it well and made a bottle at home, took it out with me and they had it within the 2 hours

Flask of hot and flask of cold and made up like a prep machine

Made in advance and chilled. Had a koodi cooler bag which keeps thinks fridge cold for 8 hours. Warmed in the tommee Tippee travel warmer.

The official guidelines try to eliminate ALL risk. The amount of risk added by some of these methods is minimal but you just have to do what your comfortable with.

The more you do it the easier it becomes.

Use ready made. So much easier.

Or if you’re using an awkward milk that doesn’t come ready made then do the 2 flasks thing. Add the powder to the hot water first and mix to kill any potential bugs before you add the cool water to bring it down to drinking temp- essentially mimicking how the perfect prep machine does it. No idea what fault your midwife could have with that, but IME anything to do with bottle feeding is automatically wrong so you never get helpful advice.

Or just add the powder into previously boiled room temp water. No it doesn’t meet NHS guidelines but that’s how most other countries advise you to do it- USA, Australia, France etc.

Yes you can buy pre-made formula bottles with the tears to screw on but it’s £8 for a box of 6 so really not cost effective. This is what we have been using for quick trips out for ease but not sure it would work long term as they’re only 70ml bottles

Just looked up number of cases of cronibacter and it is around 2-4 per year for whole of the uk.
Figures below show how rare it is. So try not to get stressed about it.

The British Health Protection Agency has reported in the period 1992 – 2002, only 16 cases of Cronobacter sp. positive blood/CSF culture among newborn infants (<1 month of age) and 20 for those infants aged between 1 and 11 months [7].19

I used to take a bottle of the ready made milk and a clean sterilised bottle out with me, and I would just pour it into the bottle when needed. Baby drank it room temperature.
It is more expensive than the powder formulas, but for me it was pretty infrequently needed so worked fine and much less messing around than taking out pots of powder, hot water and cold water.

How is this wrong?

”I’ve been advised one way to do it is by taking 2 flasks out, one with boiling water and one with cooled boiled water so I can make it the correct temperature… midwife also says this is wrong.”

If you pour the boiling water over the formula and then top up with hot then what’s the problem with this method?

Cold! Top up with cold!

I never prepared formula while out and about. I just bought bottles of premixed formula and gave that to my baby. However, she was a bit older when we switched to formula so she would put away a whole mini bottle with no bother at all. It may get a bit pricey if you have to use a new bottle at every feed with a small baby who doesn't take very much.

A friend used to do the thing with measured out powder and a flash of boiling water, or she'd ask in the café for some boiling water and she'd make the bottle as soon as she got there so it was ready to give to her baby when he wanted it.

You can get 7oz ready made cartons without the teats so you take an empty sterilised bottle and pour it out when it’s time to feed. Still not cheap but cheaper than those hospital packs you’re talking about it. The major brands all do them.

@Newmumsar93 not the 70ml with teats, they do 200ml ones that you can just pour into a bottle. Like this but there are other brands etc. groceries.morrisons.com/products/aptamil-profutura-1-first-baby-milk-formula-from-birth-309385011

Or just add the powder into previously boiled room temp water. No it doesn’t meet NHS guidelines but that’s how most other countries advise you to do it- USA, Australia, France etc.

This was advice given when I had mine. So not sure why it has changed.

Mine are rarely unwell and have no allergies. I know of breastfed babies who constantly had sick bugs & colds. We just do our best & I think that new Mums are made to feel guilty whatever they do!

Yes, I mean the bigger mini bottles (200mls). Actually didn't know they did smaller ones so ignore my previous comment!

Use the tiny ones now and then switch to the 200mls when your baby is a bit bigger and has more milk

Well that’s another topic, midwives/NHS are dead against prep machines apparently because they “harbour bacteria” and the cooled water isn’t sterile or something.

Honestly, it’s so stressful when you’re constantly being told what the wrong way is but the “right” way is hard work, especially as a FTM

I honestly don’t know, I feel like everything is wrong apart from making it up fresh at the time and then having to listen to my baby scream for 10 mins whilst it cools 🙄

What did your Midwife say was the right thing to do?

I made all mine up at the start of the day with hot water, blast chilled them, and kept them in the fridge. If I went out, I'd just take the fridge ones out with me as is. Use when hungry at whatever temperature they were at at the time.

Oh it's so annoying isn't it.

What we used to do, 2 years ago, was make the formula using boiling water, cool it quickly in the sink of cold water (we occasionally use to knock the bottle over by mistake which was devastating ) then pop them in the fridge. We made 4 at a time. You may not feel comfortable doing this of course.

A HV gave us this tip "off the record". It is actually a method from the NHS page but it does say on there to only use it if you can't make fresh bottles. We did this method for the whole first year.

We also used the ready made bottles. They were quite the life saver when he started having a few less bottles. Mine would drink at milk at room temperature, which proved helpful! Lots of places will give you a jug of hot water to pop the bottle in to warm up too.

I used the 70 ml bottles when baby was tiny and only drinking that much. Now I take the 200 ml readymade and a sterilised bottle out. She currently drinks about 150 mL at a time so I don’t waste much. I take out a prepared bottle if she will need a feed within 2hr. The 2 flask method should also be fine if you don’t mind carrying 2 flasks around all the time.

I also keep a few of the 70 ml ready to feed bottles in my bag in case we are out longer than expected (takes up less space than carrying around extra sterilised bottles and 200 ml cartons of formula but I rarely need them).

I used instant formula from the cartons. Very convenient but it's not cheap.

The ready made 200ml bottles are the easiest but I have one of those awkward babies who never liked it! So we did the 2 flask method with no issues at all, unless he would be due a bottle within 2 hours of us going out. Then we'd just make the bottle up and take it with us.

I've heard of the Nuby rapid cool but I've never used it myself, might be worth a look?

It gets so much easier as they get older, feed less often and more predictably!

The NHS stance seems to be ‘feed on demand’ but also ‘make every bottle from
scratch using freshly boiled water’. Which is obviously a massive contradiction. I would stop expecting to get reasonable bottle feeding advice from a midwife or health visitor because they have to promote breastfeeding and aren’t supposed to differ from the official nonsense.

If you want to be very cautious or just favour convenience then then use the ready made. If you want to save money then it’s up to you to decide what you’re comfortable with but there’s never going to be a fully approved method. The only other alternative I can think of is to get baby on a stringent Gina Ford style routine so you can predict bottle times to the nearest minute but then of course you’re ignoring the feed on demand advice, and it’s a very drastic solution to avoid using flasks 😂

Well according to your midwife it's a miracle that my 2 have survived life with me. We had a prep machine with the eldest. Youngest is still having formula and we take a bottle of hot and a bottle of cold water when we go out and make a bottle as needed. Works for us.