Managing newborn and other children alone !

[cushionstar]

Does anyone have any tips of doing night feeds , whilst bottle feeding etc alone ?
Right now I'm making the bottles fresh and it's just taking forever with the making and then cooling process.
I also have a ds9 who is complaining about waking up in the night and hearing the baby cry !
I've not long had a c section 2 weeks ago so jm not very quick.
Thanks

A hot water dispenser that you can set temperature on. That way you've got 70°C water that you can make bottle up straight away. Much quicker than heating up or cooling down a bottle

Does the baby manage to wake him up from downstairs when crying? Can you shut the doors to drown out the sound a bit for your son? Perfect prep machine may be an option if you keep it clean/follow the instructions well.

I used to premake my bottles and leave them at room temp, 6 in the night and then wash, sterilised, in the morning to make 6 more, but that was 9/10 years ago i was making bottles not sure if you’re allowed to do that anymore? Xx

White noise at night will help soften the cries if he's taking about the middle of the night.

You could get the premade formula for the night time and see if baby will take it cold?

Thermos? I’ve done this a couple of times. My son is 10 months tho so a bit less worried about the rules.
we also boil to 70 and keep a jug of cold water in the fridge to cool down in about 5 mins.

the only instant answer is perfect prep machines never used one for hygiene and space reasons but some people swear by them

So there's a few different ways of doing this
You could do the fridge method. Health visitors are against it however its still on the NHS website and I'll be doing it again. You make the bottle/s fresh, cool down as quick as possible and put it in the fridge. Then you'll only need a couple of minutes to warm it up.
Or you get the pr made bottles, and you just need to warm it up.
Or you could have two flask, one with boiling water, one with cold. Do a hot shot of the boiling water, Killing any germs , then make up the rest of the feed with cold water.
Or there's these flasks that cool the boiling formula down within a minute or two. A couple of companies make them, I know nuby is one. You make the formula fresh, pour it in the flask and its ready to drink very quickly.

Or as someone has mentioned, you've got the perfect prep machines.

You weren't suppose to do that 10 years ago nether mind now.

The nuby rapid cool will help you. You can keep your hot water in a thermos flask with a digital lid that will tell you it’s a safe temperature. Then you can do it al from the comfort of your bedroom and it will be ready in 3 minutes.

Could you buy the pre made bottles for overnight? As long as you have clean, sterilised bottles then you could just tip it in- no need to warm up unless baby prefers it that way. I know they are more expensive but it might be easier for you in the short term. If baby will drink it at room temp then you could take the bottles and little bottles of formula into your bedroom for the night then you wouldn't have to leave the room.

Perfect prep machine. Best bit of baby kit I brought.

And before anyone comes at me, use the right filters, clean it regularly....

I used to sterilise 6 bottles at a time, boil the water, make up the bottle with the boiling water cap them, and then rapid cool them by sitting them in a bowl of cold water that I also chucked 3 bags of frozen peas in and twirled them every few mins. The frozen peas meant it chilled the bottles down v quickly (10 mins ish). When they were room temp or lower I would put them all in the fridge and that was all my bottles done for the next day. This is only safe if you use boiling water to mix the powder and then rapid chill them in icy water. I would throw the defrosted peas back in the freezer for the next day (just remember not to eat the peas!)

if you can, get DC used to drinking cold milk..it saves a lot of faff heating the bottles back up

My health visitor at the time said it was ok 🤷🏻‍♀️ aslong as i didn’t keep them over 24hrs, and once used no longer than an hour xx

@Avie29 you were very poorly advised then as that was not the advice at the time. Absolutely not advice OP should take either