Formula Feeding

[Lou98]

I'm currently 31 weeks pregnant with my first baby and have been weighing up BF or FF. I am still undecided but for my own personal reasons I think it will most likely be FF. However, I'm really confused about it all and was wondering if anybody could help with answering some questions for me?

1. How do you know how much formula to give your baby and will I know when they're hungry/showing signs?

1. Is it best to stick to one brand of formula? So for example, if I give them aptamil but one day they don't have any in the shops, could I give them a different brand? Or would that upset their tummy?

1. What is your preferred brand of formula? And roughly, how much do you spend per week?

1. How many bottles roughly do you need for FF? And what bottles do you prefer?

1. If FF straight away after birth, does your milk still come in and if so how long does it take to "dry up" ?

Sorry for so many questions but I'm just so confused with it all! Any help would be much appreciated!

@yellowlorry123 it was reading the stories from people who found mould and had unwell babies. However, having looked in to it a bit more it seems as though all these cases they weren't using the proper TT filters, so I'll make sure to definitely get those ones and should be no issues, definitely seems like it will be handy!

@BertieBotts thank you, that's all really helpful! Never even thought about writing the time on the bottles, definitely think that will help! 😁

We were using half a ready made bottle when DS2 came home from hospital - had to write the date and time on the lid as there were a few panic moments of "Wait, which one did you put in the fridge first?" when we ended up with 2 open ones by mistake.

@BertieBotts Yeah this is definitely something we would do! So if you only use half of the bottle of ready made formula, can you keep the rest in the fridge for the next bottle? Or once it's open does it need to be thrown away?

I can't remember if we just used the same guidelines as for made up powdered formula or whether it said on the bottle, but we would pour half of it into another bottle to feed and keep the other half in the fridge.

Opening, taking some out and saving the rest for later is fine but if you've fed half of it and they don't want the other half you need to throw it away because of bacterial contamination from their mouth.

I don't know if it's the same in the UK but the ready to feed bottles here fit the smallest sized screw lid teats on, so when he was taking a whole one or when there was half of one left we'd just do that.