So confused! Making up bottles?

[Mum2b_Claire]

Asda charge £1.05 per 500ml carton of cow and gate which we use btw. Boots is £1.06 each, Waitrose pricier at £1.16!

 

[angelae36]

Possibly a dumb question but do the bottles not melt if you microwave them?

No they don't otherwise that would make microwave sterilisers a bit of a waste of money!!

 

[angelstardust]

The general consensus to please both the current guidelines and parents who are not actually psychic or have enough time (and lets face it, money to pay the electric bill), is to

Boil a fresh kettle of water and cool for 30mins (which should bring it to around 70'C),
sterilise your bottles,
pour in your water,
add your milk powder,
seal the bottles with lids on,
shake for a good 20secs'
cool them down quickly by sitting them in a sink of cold water.
Once cooled put them in the middle shelf of your fridge not the door (the temperature fluctuates too much on the door) and re-heat as needed. Keep them no longer than 24 hours. Discard any unwanted milk from each feed and wash the bottle out as soon as it's finished with.

In saying that, the guidelines with the boys was to leave bottles of boiled water at room temp and add powder as needed and they were fine, didn't even get listeria or nuthin

 

[costgang]

I made 24 hours worth of bottles in advance and stored them in the fridge hun

I did that with both of mine and will be doing it with the one I am expecting too.
Stored in the fridge complete with powder already in!

same here, did it with my other 2 and had no problems with them and so far joah is fine

 

[kirsten1985]

The general consensus to please both the current guidelines and parents who are not actually psychic or have enough time (and lets face it, money to pay the electric bill), is to

Boil a fresh kettle of water and cool for 30mins (which should bring it to around 70'C),
sterilise your bottles,
pour in your water,
add your milk powder,
seal the bottles with lids on,
shake for a good 20secs'
cool them down quickly by sitting them in a sink of cold water.
Once cooled put them in the middle shelf of your fridge not the door (the temperature fluctuates too much on the door) and re-heat as needed. Keep them no longer than 24 hours. Discard any unwanted milk from each feed and wash the bottle out as soon as it's finished with.

In saying that, the guidelines with the boys was to leave bottles of boiled water at room temp and add powder as needed and they were fine, didn't even get listeria or nuthin

I do exactly this. I make 6 bottles at a time as that is what she has in 24 hours.

 

[x-amy-x]

Please explain what you mean by the powder not being sterile? Surely it is made in a sterile environment? I have an awful imagine of it being made in some barn somewhere

I've always added my powder to luke warm water. She is a year old now and we've never had a problem.

So I sterilized bottles, boiled kettle. Made up the bottles with just water, added powder when needed

xxx

 

[polo_princess]

I use ready made formula anyway so in a carton in the fridge or in a bottle in the fridge is the same thing ....

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Please explain what you mean by the powder not being sterile? Surely it is made in a sterile environment? I have an awful imagine of it being made in some barn somewhere

I've always added my powder to luke warm water. She is a year old now and we've never had a problem.

So I sterilized bottles, boiled kettle. Made up the bottles with just water, added powder when needed

xxx

Milk powder is not a sterile product. I'm not sure why. It's very, very rare, but it is POSSIBLE that the powder could contain bacterias that cause salmonella and /or meningitis.

I think there have been like 50 babies ever to have died from this. Clearly this is a tiny number in the grand scheme of things, but make your own mind up.

 

[rubyrose]

I use a flask. I put boiling hot water in it so its basically sterilized everytime i re fill it but i wash it to every day and then when i make up the feeds if its too hot just run the bottle under the cold tap, mw says thats fine to and saves me lots of time tho yeah my sterilizer seems to be on 24/7 to!

 

[bjl1981]

Originally I was using cooled boiled water and storing that in the fridge til I wanted a bottle then adding powder, but got a little paranoid when my LO got thrush in his mouth and my HV made me feel rotten and asked had I been sterilising things properly. I'd been so careful washing and sterilising everything, so the only thing I could attribute it to was the powder. Since then I've been making up 3 or 4 bottles at a time with boiling water (about 30 mins off boil) and cooling to put in fridge.

It could be that the thrush was nothing to do with the powder, but I'm paranoid now.

 

[HannahGraceee]

I put hot water in all my 12 bottles in the morning wait for them to cool down and put them in the fridge -

when avas needs one i boil the ketle - trip half one of the bottles out - add boiling water to fill the other half up - so the bottle is now perfect temp - then add the milk powder x x

 

[angelstardust]

Please explain what you mean by the powder not being sterile? Surely it is made in a sterile environment? I have an awful imagine of it being made in some barn somewhere

I've always added my powder to luke warm water. She is a year old now and we've never had a problem.

So I sterilized bottles, boiled kettle. Made up the bottles with just water, added powder when needed

xxx

Doesn't matter if it is made in a sterile environment, as soon as you open the box it's no longer sterile.

But as I said, I added powder to room temp water (which won't kill any bacteria in the powder) and not had any problems.

Personally I think it has more to do with manufacturers covering their arse than anything else.

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

I've also wondered if it has also something to do with the government pushing BF very hard, in that they want to make formula seem as inconvenient as possible. It is a small risk though that LO could get ill from bacteria that may be present in the powder, and personally not a risk I was willing to take, so I use ready made.

 

[dellamaria]

What I did with my daughter, and what I'm planning on doing when this baby finally arrives, is sterilise the bottles and then put them in the fridge after I've put boiled water in them (after they've cooled).Then when I need a feed made up I take out the bottle and heat it in the microwave, add the powder and then give it a good shake or stir so there are no hotspots. This way the actual feed hasn't been left to sit at room temp for hours and it's hot enough when being made up to deal with the bacteria issue.

 

[NoSpringChick]

Are people adding the powder to the cold water?

I was asking my hv about making bottles up in advance,and she advised against it - but I said if I was to though how would i go about it - and you have to add the powder to the hot water as their is a bug in the powder and the hot water kills the bug. She did say it was a rareity for this bug to cause a problem, but this is why they tell you to make up each bottle as and when needed --- which we have been doing but doing that and demand feeding don't go hand in hand - how can the government say demand feed yet make up each bottle individually?
We have done and had screaming when she was young - then I thought about them telling us to save water, well running a bottle under the tap must use TONS of water, not to mention boiling the kettle and the microwave for the steriliser.

Waffling abit here, just wanted to pass on what I was told about the water, bug, powder thing!