Is it ok to make up bottles this way?

[owltrousers]

Boil water, pour desired amount into sterilised bottles, allow to cool to room temperature. Add formula as and when a feed is needed. Shake, feed baby?

The perfect prep is a life saver.
You take a sterilised bottle (it definitely isn't a replacement for sterilising) and the pp will fire a hot shot (water IS hot enough to kill the bacteria in formula) and it then gives you two minutes max to add the formula and shake it to mix. (If you take too long then the hot shot of water will have cooled too much to be effective at killing the bacteria so the pp resets and you have to start again.) You then place the bottle back in the pp and it will add cooler water to create the perfect temperature bottle.
Health visitors are obligated to tell you not to use them as the nhs forces them to. They like to take many years to update guidelines and tend to reject newer innovations. Most will admit this if you have a frank chat about it.

I used cooled boiled water. Why? Because in most countries it's done that way, some even use it straight from the tap.

www.enfamil.com/articles/how-to-make-baby-formula

UK guidelines are EXTREMELY strict and v v much the absolute worst case scenario. Many people will say 'why take a risk with your baby?' but it really isn't a risk, it's absolutely fine.

Look up how many babies have died from bacteria in formula powder...

Best practice - make up as needed, hot water, use asap.

Second best practice - make up with hot water no more than 24h in advance, cool quickly, store back of fridge, reheat when ready to feed.

If you are going to make up with cooled boiled water just make sure it's immediately before a feed. But this is not UK advice.

All the guidelines are about minimising the risk of bacteria multiplying so if you're going to go against best practice, it's worth being aware of this and not omitting two steps which try to eliminate the same thing.

Aah - sorry. Some steps are about minimising multiplying risk (storage time, temperature of milk when stored) and some are about eliminating or minimising sources of bacteria to begin with (washing, sterilising, clean hands/implements to make, using hot water to make up)

The perfect prep adds a shot of hot water to the formula then tops up with tepid. That's what I do manually

I did it the same way as you OP for both my boys but I know that doesn't mean it's right. They were fine and my health visitor, midwife and doctor said it was fine too!! The instructions on the formula used to blow my mind and really stress me out.. if you were going to do it properly you'd have to boil the water then wait for it to get to a certain temp, use a sterilised thermometer to check the temp and if it's below reboil and do the whole thing again?? Arghhh....

To be fair the nhs will never recommend perfect prep because they don't recommend formula. I think they should provide more guidelines on how to safety prepare formula because everyone does it differently!

Im not saying its big or clever to do this but I've always filled the bottles with boiled water, put them in the fridge once cooled then used pre measured pots of powder, dumped in when feed due and 45 seconds in microwave.

I spent over a month agonising about how to make up bottles when I couldn't breastfeed DS. Nobody would give me any meaningful advice at all. Midwives are only allowed to give full support with breastfeeding and I was made to feel like I was poisoning my baby anyway, so who cared how I made up the bottles?

In the end a friend told me to fill the (sterilised) bottles with boiled water and add formula as needed. It changed my life. My son was fed quickly and much happier.

I’m pretty sure the guidelines are purely an arse-covering exercise for the manufacturers.

Definitely agree with allbuttershortbread, you would never make it up according to the guidelines on the box or you would end up with a screaming baby for half hour every time they was hungry.

There is pretty much zero point in adding formula to cool boiled water, you might as well not bother boiling the water in the first place and tap water in this country is safe to drink.

The formula needs to be added to water hot enough to kill bacteria in the formula powder. It's very rare but has happened that babies have become very ill or even died from bacteria (it has a huge long name) in formula powder, which is no where near sterile.

WHO recommends ideally making a fresh feed each time. However, they acknowledge that 'ain't nobody got time for that' so they say that in countries where the water is safe and there is good refrigeration (ie. The UK) you can make however many bottles you need for 24 hours, cool them quickly and then put them in the fridge until needed. With my first baby, he would drink it straight out the fridge (!), but my second I microwaved it for a few seconds and then shook.

Oh and they don't recommend adding powder to a bit of hot water and then topping up with cold, because it's hard to ensure that you have the powder to water ratio correct and giving babies formula that is too concentrated/dilute can be problematic.

For night feeds i fully intend on putting boiling water in the bottles at the start of the night, adding the powder when its feed time and using a bottle warmer to reheat. No way if my baby feeds 3 times overnight am i standing downstairs by the kettle measuring the temperature it wasn't that long ago they recommended making up feeds with cool boiled water, formula isn't dangerous its another 'just in case' scenario. I was under the impression that doing it this way is much safer than making up the milk for all day in the morning and leaving it in the fridge.

I was under the impression that doing it this way is much safer than making up the milk for all day in the morning and leaving it in the fridge.

The WHO guidelines are to keep it in the fridge. Why wouldn't that be safe?

This is why you should always follow the instructions on the side of the formula packet.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42908706

If a baby contracts salmonella it could be fatal to them.

It’s safer to make the bottles with boiling water, cool and store in the fridge than to make them up with cold water.

I didnt know about the WHO guidelines, I was thinking about not taking made up bottles out and about but obviously they wouldn't be in the fridge. If WHO says it's safe to make them all up and leave them in the fridge that's a bloody lifesaver

For out and about I just took an empty sterilised bottle and the cartons. Yes, you can't use bottles of pre made milk for out and about because they will be out of the fridge for too long. You can use a thermos flask of hot water as well though, but I couldn't be arsed.

However you do it, adding powder to very hot water is the essential step and means that the bottle will probably be ok. Adding the powder to cooled boiled water is pointless, may as well use cold tap water, and dangerous.

I did this but it was 20 years ago. Never did mine any harm!

With my dd I used to fill 6 bottles with boiling water. When baby needed fed I would pour out some of the cool water and top up with boiled water and put in milk.

I just make them fresh now with my son and sit in cold water to cool down.

No idea why i didn't back then, think I panicked about getting the milk quicker to baby.

I used to use a bit of hot water to sterilise the powder and added the rest as tepid water: I endured the measurements were correct by using a second bottle to measure the water.

So if I measured out 2oz of boiled water and added 4 scoops of formula to that and then added the whole lot to another 2oz of cooled boiled water in a sterilised bottle that would cover me?

How about the container I used to mix up the boiled water and formula, that would need to be sterile and resterilised before each "mix" was made?

So if I measured out 2oz of boiled water and added 4 scoops of formula to that and then added the whole lot to another 2oz of cooled boiled water in a sterilised bottle that would cover me?

Yes I guess you could but that seems like a lot of faff when you could perfectly safely just make a batch of bottles all in one go and then keep them in the fridge.

It also meant I didn't have to sterilise a bottle each time I wanted to make a feed. Just sterilise 4/5/however many needed in one go in the microwave steriliser and make them all in one go.