FF CHAMPIONS PLEASE HELP ME :( new to FF with lots of questions

[Baby2012]

Hello ladies,

cutting a very long story short I am now ff my 5 week old baby. Having spent 4 weeks learning all about bf I feel so out of my comfort zone & would really love to hear how everyone else ff so that I can choose what i'll do....

So...

1 - do you feed your baby on schedule or just when they want? Im worried about over feeding?

2 - how do you know when to increase the oz? & when to change the teat?

3 - I'm using hipp organic combiotic with Tomme T bottles whats the safest way to make up bottles for when on the go? I've read that the flask breads bacteria?

4 - I feed dd the ready mades cartoons then put left over milk in the fridge. Is is safe to add the remaining cold milk into the warm straight out the sterlizer (cooled foir 3 mins) bottle?

5 - when they say room temperature water, how long do you leave the kettle to cool for? The Hipp packaging says 40 mins but thats a long time when dd is screaming for food?

6 - what's the safest way to make night feeds? can I make store in fridge then warm up?


7 - dd was 8lb 11oz last week and drinks between 1z to 4oz. How do you work out roughly how much she should feed? I feed her 4 hourly, 3 at night sometimes about 6 times a day.


THANK YOU to anyone who replies even if just to one of the questions or to offer tips. I think it's such a shame we're given so little advice and support when there's bf advice everywhere. My hv has been pants!!

 

[Ktothema]

Welcome to the world of formula feeding - its a completely different set of issues to breast feeding!

1. Just feed when baby wants, she'll soon establish her own pattern.
2. When baby starts clearing a bottle and still seems hungry then up the ounces. Or if baby clears bottle but doesn't last as long between feeds.
3. I used flasks with dd and do now with ds with no problems. I always make sure the water is refreshed every 12hrs and regular give them a wash out. I fill one with boiling water and one with cold boiled water from the fridge, and mix the water 2/3 hot and 1/3 cold to make a bottle. But when out and about I fill a bottle with hot water and let it cool whilst about, and add powder when needed (only with hipp though, when I used aptamil I used ready made)
4. I'm sure that's fine
5. Oh, answered that in 3!
6. I use the double flask method but change it to more 50/50 mix as I don't change nappy during night
7. There's a rough formula of 2 to 2.5 oz to every pound your baby weighs, but baby will eat what she wants! 6 bottles a day sounds fine to me.

Hope that's helps!

 

[MrsButterfly]

I also use hipp combiotic. At the start of each day I fill bottles with boiled water, fully seal and leave on the side. I then just add powder when needed - this makes it easy for night feeds. When I was on aptamil I used the rapid cool and fridge method but you can't do that with the new hipp cos of the friendly bacteria, they must be used immediately and anything unused discarded within hour. Exception to that are the cartons. Altho they're branded combiotic they don't have friendly bacteria in.

I fed in demand as I had been whilst bf but lo eventually got himself in a 3hr routine. My hv gave me a rough guideline of 150ml of formula for each kilo of expected weight daily. But each baby is different and mine has always taken slightly more than that.

If your baby drains a bottle and seems hungry still up it an oz and see how they get on.

This site is great for info on ff so keep asking any questions

 

[Baby2012]

MrsButterfly & Ktothema you ladies have been more helpful than any of the professionals I have spoken to, THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!!!

MrsButterfly "I fill bottles with boiled water, fully seal and leave on the side. I then just add powder when needed - this makes it easy for night feeds" this sounds FAB esp like you say for night feeds BUT doesn't the water get cold by the end of the day? sorry if that sounds like a silly question xxxxxx

 

[dizz]

I'll answer the ones I can do quickly - got a hot date with a fish finger sandwich (yes I am THAT classy) as soon as small stroppy one goes to sleep!

1 - do you feed your baby on schedule or just when they want? Im worried about over feeding?
Generally they'll end up dropping into their own pattern - we were a bit funny in that she was in NICU and came out of there on a very rigid (they'd yell at me in the transitional care ward if a feed was late because of issues with her NG tube) 3 hour schedule... SHE took the lead and it moved to four hourly a while after we were discharged, then she decided to drop the night bottles (aaah bliss) and now we're waiting to work out how her ladyship will react to solids in her schedule. In the early days I tended to keep in mind that she'd probably be wanting a refuelling stop anywhere between 2 and 4 hours after a feed (and of course it all goes out of the window during growth spurts when it's more "feed me... feed me again... feed me again... oi I'm starving here!")

2 - how do you know when to increase the oz? & when to change the teat?
The one I got told (think it was on here) was they should always leave a tiny bit in the bottle - we always upped an oz when she was fully draining a few bottles in the course of the day. Changing the teat again - they start to fuss about, they might fall asleep mid-feed, they might get really cheesed off and frustrated - we always found you could hear it more than see it as you'd really hear her labouring away at it and often see the teat collapsing under the weight of the slurp (think of trying to get a stupidly thick macdonalds milkshake up a straw - she very much went at things a similar way when she needed moving up one). It's a bit trial and errorey - you might try the next teat up and they struggle with it, so go back down and retry a while later - you'll need to have the teats in anyway so it's just a case of sterilising one to give it a go.

3 - I'm using hipp organic combiotic with Tomme T bottles whats the safest way to make up bottles for when on the go? I've read that the flask breads bacteria?
We used the hot flask and jug of cooled boiled water way of making things up - I'd generally change the flask water every few hours (basically on a highly scientific method of when I fancied a cup of tea). I figured that I was regularly putting boiling water into the flask anyway which would zap anything in there - plus if you start overthinking it about the state of the inside of your kettle or your water pipes you'd go nuts.

4 - I feed dd the ready mades cartoons then put left over milk in the fridge. Is is safe to add the remaining cold milk into the warm straight out the sterlizer (cooled foir 3 mins) bottle?
I cold water sterilise (turned out our microwave steriliser didn't fit in the microwave) so have never done this - I guess it would be ok - after all you can heat the ready made carton milk if your baby prefers to take it warm can't you?

5 - when they say room temperature water, how long do you leave the kettle to cool for? The Hipp packaging says 40 mins but thats a long time when dd is screaming for food?
Again, it's not a formula I use so I'm not sure on that one.

6 - what's the safest way to make night feeds? can I make store in fridge then warm up?
I again do the two flasks thing - there are guidelines I think on the NHS website if you're going to pre-make bottles but it's not the recommended way (I don't because I can take two flasks upstairs and not have to come down to the kitchen to furtle in the fridge and then warm bottles up)


7 - dd was 8lb 11oz last week and drinks between 1z to 4oz. How do you work out roughly how much she should feed? I feed her 4 hourly, 3 at night sometimes about 6 times a day.
Look at the side of the formula tin and there should be a rough guide but remember babies differ and growth spurts and the like can throw things off for a while as well.

 

[Baby2012]

thank you dizz! you sound like whizz!

Think I need to invest in a flask

 

[skunkpixie]

With the new Hipp Combiotic formula, it has to be made up at a lower temperature than most other formulas. This is because it contains live prebiotic cultures that are destroyed at high temperatures. The best way to make up your bottles (and a way given the ok by Hipp in an email to me) is to fill 24 hours worth of bottles with the correct amount of boiled water. Leave them on the side so they become room temperature. Add the correct number of scoops when baby needs a feed, shake and serve. Most babies will be fine to drink room temp formula, but if you did want to warm it a little, then warm the water for a couple of minutes in a bottle warmer/jug of hot water before adding the powder. xxx

 

[MrsButterfly]

MrsButterfly & Ktothema you ladies have been more helpful than any of the professionals I have spoken to, THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!!!

MrsButterfly "I fill bottles with boiled water, fully seal and leave on the side. I then just add powder when needed - this makes it easy for night feeds" this sounds FAB esp like you say for night feeds BUT doesn't the water get cold by the end of the day? sorry if that sounds like a silly question xxxxxx

When we're out and about I feed at room temp and he's fine with it (just needs a bit more swirling to mix). If at home I do what skunkpixie wrote and warm the water back up in my bottle warmer before adding the powder.

And no probs for advice. I spent hours trawling web for advice and also asked a lot on here! We're all here to help