Feeding

Paul Pogba

Hi all, need some advice/explanation here and please don’t judge me or berate me. So we have a one week old baby and we are bottle feeding using apatamil powder. Instructions say to boil 1 litre and let it rest for half an hour before making the bottle and then cool it. Water temp needs to hit at least 70 degrees. I don’t understand the whole boiling a litre of water to make 60ml bottles and waiting 30 minutes. Feeds are taking over an hour from prep to finish so baby isn’t getting enough sleep in between feeds imo. Surely the most important thing is temperature as it still needs to be cooled further after making the bottle. Basically I feel boiling a litre of water is a waste, waiting 30 minutes to let it cool from 100 degrees is more time wasted when it only has to hit 70 to kill germs/bacteria. Especially if baby is hungry and upset, you’re talking about 45 minutes to assemble bottle alone. Please be kind

Loveinapril

Formula is not sterile so that's why the water needs to be hot, but not boiling because the boiling water can kill some of the nutrients. I imagine that amount of water needs to be used due to the mineral content in water, but I am not sure. You should know now if your kid feeds every three or four hours so you can prepare a bottle 2.5 or 3 hours after a bottle so there is one ready. It is against guidelines but pretty much everyone I know made a few bottles together, cooled quickly then stuck in the fridge to be heated up when needed.

Paul Pogba

Loveinapril wrote: »

Formula is not sterile so that's why the water needs to be hot, but not boiling because the boiling water can kill some of the nutrients. I imagine that amount of water needs to be used due to the mineral content in water, but I am not sure. You should know now if your kid feeds every three or four hours so you can prepare a bottle 2.5 or 3 hours after a bottle so there is one ready. It is against guidelines but pretty much everyone I know made a few bottles together, cooled quickly then stuck in the fridge to be heated up when needed.

We are just going by the instructions on the aptamil box with regard to making the bottle.

https://www.aptaclub.co.uk/products/aptamil/infant-formula/aptamil-first-milk-safe-preparation.html?_ga=2.20666033.863170389.1620041072-1341750359.1620041072

Boiling 1000ml to make 60ml is crazy in my opinion. Kid feeds every 3 hours and generally sleeps for 3 hours at a time but if we spend an hour feeding then it means they wake hungry but are still tired.
With regard to making a few bottles and heating them what’s the best way to heat them, in a container with hot water??

PhoenixParker

If you want to continue to be super strict:

Boil some water. Pour it into a sterile container. Let it cool. Then put it in the fridge. Use that to cool the freshly boiled water to 70. Add your formula. Shake it. Give it a minute then top up with more cooled water to get it to drinking temp.

There's a bit of finagling working out proportions as you need to bear in mind it's 30ml/scoop not 30ml with a scoop in the bottle but it can be done.

Or you can do what most parents do and make the days bottles up the night before, following the directions and putting them in the fridge when done. Sit them in a bowl of hot water to heat.

Paul Pogba

PhoenixParker wrote: »

If you want to continue to be super strict:

Boil some water. Pour it into a sterile container. Let it cool. Then put it in the fridge. Use that to cool the freshly boiled water to 70. Add your formula. Shake it. Give it a minute then top up with more cooled water to get it to drinking temp.

There's a bit of finagling working out proportions as you need to bear in mind it's 30ml/scoop not 30ml with a scoop in the bottle but it can be done.

Or you can do what most parents do and make the days bottles up the night before, following the directions and putting them in the fridge when done. Sit them in a bowl of hot water to heat.

As regard making them up the night before. Do you let them cool naturally before putting them into the fridge or do you place them in a bowl of cold water first to bring the temp down. Thanks

PhoenixParker

I always put them straight in the fridge.

Not putting hot food straight in the fridge is outdated provided you’re not putting huge volumes in at very high temps.

Old fridges were slow to cool food so hot food warmed them up and risked spoiling all your food. Modern fridges are better and the fridge will cool the warm food before anything else warms up. (Unless you’re putting in huge volumes of piping hot food)

https://www.aarp.org/home-garden/housing/info-02-2010/myth_buster_should_you_let_hot_food_cool_before_refrigerating_.html

(The reason I said to let the boiling water cool before the fridge in my first post was about the need to put a lid on it. A lid on a litre of boiling water cooling in a fridge will cause issues unless there’s a release on it to let air in)

catrionanic

God that sounds like a right faff. It isnt too late to restart breastfeeding if you have any reservations at this stage. Hope you get a routine going for you soon.

shesty

Ah, the great bottle making debate.
We did the following nightly - sterilise 6 bottles.
Boil full kettle of fresh cold water at the same time.Fill the 6 bottles with the boiled water once sterilisation was complete.Pop them in a basin of cold water for 5-10 mins to take the edge off the heat, then in on top shelf of fridge.They were there ready then when we needed them, we just added formula.
In fact we took it step further -we had 6 small plastic Tommee Tippee tubs to hold formula when out and about.We used to also fill these with appropriate number of powder scoops for the whatever the bottle size was, therefore all we had to do was grab the bottle, empty one of these tubs in, and bottle was ready.
We heated ours due refluxy babies - on baby 1, we used a bottle warmer, on babies 2 and 3, we used to take out the bottle from the fridge, empty 20-30 ml out and add freshly boiled kettle water to heat up, then the powder (the 20-30ml, I could tell from experience what would not overheat the bottle).
Probably not as per manufacturer instructions.Not getting into a debate on what's sterile or not.Simply saying, that is what worked for our 3.
I did breastfeed for the first 6 weeks or so and pump then, on 2 of them, but it didn't work out for me longterm.

sibersha

https://www.smythstoys.com/ie/en-ie/baby/tommee-tippee/tommee-tippee-closer-to-nature-perfect-prep-machine/p/140162

The best €90 you will ever spend

Paul Pogba

At the moment baby is drinking 2 scoops formula (60ml milk) but it’s slowly increasing and will need to make up 3 scoops from tomorrow onwards (obviously we won’t be increasing the feed from 60ml to 90ml straight away. I think we will go down the route of making up 4 bottles each time to get us through the night feeds and make up 4 more in the morning and reheat them as we need them. We do have the Tommy tippee perfect prep machine but the minimum it preps is 4 scoops so we can’t use that for another little while. Baby is good to drink and sleep but we only went only bottles yesterday after using the aptamil pre made milk bottles. Baby only a week old, breast feeding didn’t work out.

Thanks for all the advice so far. First baby, trying to do what’s right by baby and mum but no point be awake all night prepping a bottle when baby is chomping at the bit

Minier81

I know very little about formula but you can buy some of the ready made liquid formula. If it makes your life easier for a few weeks or even just for the night time feeds. Things change really quickly for such a small baby so a few weeks might change alot.

andreac

You can make up a few bottles at once, cool them and straight in to fridge and use them within 24 hours. Just heat up as needed then in hot water.
You must use hot water in with the formula, not cool water,as formula is not sterile and the water needs to be at least 70 degrees to kill off any bacteria in the formula.
Cooled water or cold water will not do this. Hence why you let the water boil and then cool for 30 mins to get to the correct temp to kill the bacteria.

Mantis Toboggan

sibersha wrote: »

https://www.smythstoys.com/ie/en-ie/baby/tommee-tippee/tommee-tippee-closer-to-nature-perfect-prep-machine/p/140162

The best €90 you will ever spend

Game changer.

mugsymugsy

As others said the instant bottles worked well for us rather than formula and making them up.

Also do whatever is best for the little one and keeps the parents sane. I'm sure you are doing a great job.

shesty

Paul Pogba wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice so far. First baby, trying to do what’s right by baby and mum but no point be awake all night prepping a bottle when baby is chomping at the bit

You can't be hanging around at night for bottles OP, you are only one week in...by week 3/4/5, the exhaustion is beyond overwhelming, so you will want a bottle to hand quickly.Do what you can to make it as quick and easy as possible, but to still be safe about it obviously.Sounds like you have a plan that will work for you.
We had a bottle warmer upstairs and downstairs, if it helps, so could just stick the bottle in the upstairs warmer while doing a nappy change before the feed.15eur well spent.Never used a perfect prep machine, to be honest, never needed it.

CelticRambler

Paul Pogba wrote: »

Instructions say to boil 1 litre and let it rest for half an hour before making the bottle and then cool it. Water temp needs to hit at least 70 degrees. I don’t understand the whole boiling a litre of water to make 60ml bottles and waiting 30 minutes. ... Basically I feel boiling a litre of water is a waste, waiting 30 minutes to let it cool from 100 degrees is more time wasted when it only has to hit 70 to kill germs/bacteria.

Can't quite believe that this advice hasn't been updated and clarified in the twenty years since I discussed it with the NCT in the UK (wonder if I still have the e-mail where they replied with an "oh ... yeah ... you've got a point ... we must correct that on the website ...")

Anyway, that 1-litre requirement is there because all the baby-milk marketeers and legal advisors are lazy. Here's the science:
- There is a very small risk that formula milk powder may contain harmful bacteria.
- To limit their numbers (note: limit them, not kill them) the mixture must be heated up to at least 70°C.
- Under laboratory conditions, where the units are always standardised, 1 litre of water boiled to 100°C will remain above 70°C for 30 minutes.
- That 30 minute deadline is the maximum time you should wait, assuming you're boiling your kettle of precisely 1000ml in lab with a controlled ambient temperature ... :rolleyes:

- In practice, in a domestic kitchen, just about every parent fails to make up formula correctly, for one simple reason: as soon as you add the formula to the cooling water, it drops the temperature to below 70°C and has no effect on the bacteria it's supposed to be killing. The only way to avoid this is to use the hot water within a few minutes of boiling it. The quantity boiled is irrelevant for single bottles; it is somewhat more important when making up a batch, but again, the powder should be hitting the last bottle by the 30th minute at the latest (if you're going to obsess over temperatures).

- Side note: your water may boil at more or less than 100°C depending on what altitude you live at, what salts are in the water, what type of thermostat is fitted to the kettle and where the sensor is located in relation to the water ...

The good news is that the formula manufacturers (and baby organisations like the NCT) know perfectly well that these time and temperature instructions are essentially useless, so they are very careful make the manufacturing as safe as possible, so the risk of bacterial contamination is negligible. There is considerably more risk of contamination from whatever's floating around in the kitchen at the time you're making up the bottles, from the cold water you use to cool the mixture, or indeed, from poorly washed bottles and teats or if you have a habit of dunking a wet scoop into the tin.

If you have no bottles made up and a hungry baby, as long as you've got a clean bottle available, you can prepare a feed in 5 minutes.

lashes34

We had the perfect prep machine, when baby was only drinking 3oz I would make a 6 oz at night and split it between two bottles. One fed straight away and other into the fridge for next day. Do this several times a night if needed and you had your first few bottles of the day in the fridge to be heated. Congrats on your baby

sibersha

Just make the minimum amount on the machine and feed the baby the required amount and dump the rest. It's a little wasteful but it will save you so much time

grazer

Cartons of ready made milk for night feeds were a godsend. Highly recommend certainly until you & baby find your feet & routine. Congratulations on your new little person!

Cash_Q

On our first baby we would boil 1L water, cool for 30 mins, add required water to 6 bottles, add formula, sit them in a shallow basin of cold water to cool then put in the fridge and reheat as required. PHN told us that adding the formula too quickly could kill some of the nutritional content of the powder, adding it too slowly would mean the temperature wouldnt kill all bacteria present in the powder. Painful if the 30 min cooling period was missed. Painful trying to heat a bottle in the middle of the night with a screaming baby.

We were gifted a Perfect Prep a few weeks in and it was a life saver. If I were you I would make the smallest setting 4oz bottle and then dump the unused milk, it wont be long until baby is drinking 4oz so it wont be wasteful for too long.

Ready made milks are handy but need to be discarded once open 24 hours so if you go down that route buy smaller sizes to split rather than a big 1L bottle as you won't get through that in 24 hours just yet. Also worth noting that the ready made ones can be expensive and they can also have a different taste. A friend of mine was combination feeding and her son would only drink the ready-made bottles alongside her breastmilk, if she was exclusively formula feeding that would have been a very expensive way to do it. Powdered formula is expensive enough so we only used ready-made when out and about for longer than 2 hours and they were often refused unless baby was really hungry as she didn't like the taste difference.

fits

It sounds so hard to be getting up and making bottles during the night. I’d definitely be getting the ready made in the early weeks.

Antares35

Hi OP congrats on the baby. I remember those long nights all too well. We went through kilos of chocolate biscuits waiting for the kettle to cool! I'd second the recommendation to try pre made. It's more expensive but definitely worth it for the short period. Just bear in mind I think the composition differs slightly to keep it preserved. Ours never had a problem switching between the two though. We also found it helpful for when we were out and about. Best of luck.

Millem

I am in the market for a new kettle and toaster and I noticed you can buy kettles where you can change the temperature on it 70/80/90/100 etc.

Maybe this isn’t safe though for making up bottles? Sorry OP but no words of wisdom. Whatever helps you with your sleep!

Paul Pogba

H, just to update you all on this. When we got home from the hospital we were using the pre made aptamil milks but we just changed to powder milk as soon as they ran out. So I’m the space of the last 24 hours baby has gone from drinking 60ml t 80/85ml so we are making up 3oz at a time. We do have a few of those pre made milks in the press for emergency’s. Have used both apatamil and sma and she didn’t mind either. Only reason we changed from aptamil to sma is because the aptamil were all sold out. Actually dunnes stores have a baby event at the moment, prices reduced on baby formula etc

Also sleeping 3-3.5 hours and not screaming for feeds when she wakes. Made up 4 bottles last night before bedtime , fridged them and we’ve already used 3 and no issues with her taking to them. She is great to drink tbf. Won’t be long til we have to go to 4oz feeds and can use the perfect prep machine which also has a bottle warmer.

I’ve read through all the replies above and want to thank you all for the advice. Life is a lot easier even in the last 24 hours with less prepping and a bit more sleep. Baby is less stressed because she’s not waking up hungry.

CelticRambler

Had a quick scan of th'internet since last night, and I'm pleased to see that all reputable sources now make the same recommendation that I set out above: wait no more than 30 minutes before adding the formula. In a normal kettle, your water should be at about 80°C within 2-10 minutes (depending on the shape of the kettle and loads of other factors) which is already cutting it very fine for making up the formula to 70°C.

Incidentally, the WHO considers feeds made up with room-temperature water to be acceptable if the water itself is safe to drink, and the bottle is given immediately.

Paul Pogba

CelticRambler wrote: »

Had a quick scan of th'internet since last night, and I'm pleased to see that all reputable sources now make the same recommendation that I set out above: wait no more than 30 minutes before adding the formula. In a normal kettle, your water should be at about 80°C within 2-10 minutes (depending on the shape of the kettle and loads of other factors) which is already cutting it very fine for making up the formula to 70°C.

Incidentally, the WHO considers feeds made up with room-temperature water to be acceptable if the water itself is safe to drink, and the bottle is given immediately.

We are using bottled water (boiling it) but keep an eye on the sodium (ideally less than 20) and sulphate (under 25) content. They vary greatly. We are using ishka water from dunnes stores which is significantly lower than dunnes own brand. Was in Aldi yesterday, they have comeragh water and absolutely no content indications on the 5L bottles.

CelticRambler

Bottled water is not recommended for making up feeds unless you have no access to treated tap water. Apart from the mineral content (that you increase by boiling) there is still doubt about the safety of the plastic used for "disposable" plastic bottles. Newborns are the most sensitive to these molecules.

Eireog1

I'll probably be shot but here is what I do and it works great for us. I have a 3 year old that I haven't killed and a 7 month old that has never been sick.
I fill the kettle with fresh water and boil. I wash the bottles and put in the sterliser and once the sterliser is finished I give it a few mins so bottles aren't to hot to handle and I pour the required amount of water into the required number of bottles for the day and I leave them on the counter top in our kitchen. I fill out powder container with the number of scoops of powder. Both our babies had reflux so I added baby gavison to the bottles and shake until dissolved and then add the powder and also shake to dissolve. I never heated bottles as my 2 drank them at room temperature as they did in the hospital with the small bottles that they provide so never saw the point in heating them and it has worked great for us and it is handy when out and about as you don't have to heat bottles.

I know this is against advise but I also know another few families that do this and all kids have been fine. Find something that works for you on your child and once you and they are happy and not sick thats all that matters.

Congrats by the way

bee06

Paul Pogba wrote: »

H, just to update you all on this. When we got home from the hospital we were using the pre made aptamil milks but we just changed to powder milk as soon as they ran out. So I’m the space of the last 24 hours baby has gone from drinking 60ml t 80/85ml so we are making up 3oz at a time. We do have a few of those pre made milks in the press for emergency’s. Have used both apatamil and sma and she didn’t mind either. Only reason we changed from aptamil to sma is because the aptamil were all sold out. Actually dunnes stores have a baby event at the moment, prices reduced on baby formula etc

Also sleeping 3-3.5 hours and not screaming for feeds when she wakes. Made up 4 bottles last night before bedtime , fridged them and we’ve already used 3 and no issues with her taking to them. She is great to drink tbf. Won’t be long til we have to go to 4oz feeds and can use the perfect prep machine which also has a bottle warmer.

I’ve read through all the replies above and want to thank you all for the advice. Life is a lot easier even in the last 24 hours with less prepping and a bit more sleep. Baby is less stressed because she’s not waking up hungry.

It’s not really recommended to switch between brands and stage 1 formula should not be discounted for this reason. Are you definitely buying stage 1?

Paul Pogba

bee06 wrote: »

It’s not really recommended to switch between brands and stage 1 formula should not be discounted for this reason. Are you definitely buying stage 1?

Yes definitely stage 1. Went to 4 shops Sunday , all sold out of apatamil. Wanted some as back up only. Like I said, first time parents to a one week old. We’re not perfect.

mugsymugsy

Paul Pogba wrote: »

Yes definitely stage 1. Went to 4 shops Sunday , all sold out of apatamil. Wanted some as back up only. Like I said, first time parents to a one week old. We’re not perfect.

Honestly sounds like you are doing a great job. Keep working together as a team and all will be good!

awec

Aptamil do the large pre-made bottles that are maybe 750ml or something? I think they are good in the fridge for 24 hours once opened or something like that.

More expensive but much, much easier for the first stages while things are a bit erratic. Especially if your baby is like ours was and would happily drink it cold out of the fridge!

bee06

Paul Pogba wrote: »

Yes definitely stage 1. Went to 4 shops Sunday , all sold out of apatamil. Wanted some as back up only. Like I said, first time parents to a one week old. We’re not perfect.

No parent is perfect, we’re all just doing the best we know how. It was just when you mentioned discounts I was worried you had bought stage 2 and not realised there was a difference.

Cash_Q

Paul Pogba wrote:

Yes definitely stage 1. Went to 4 shops Sunday , all sold out of apatamil. Wanted some as back up only. Like I said, first time parents to a one week old. We’re not perfect.

None of us are perfect and it sounds like you're doing great! Totally understandable to buy any different formula when Aptamil was sold out, but I would say to stick wth the SMA now that you've switched, unless you just used it temporarily and are back using Aptamil then stick with that.. basically just stick with one, whatever one you choose.

It is so so so hard to have everything sorted. I had my second baby in September and came home from hospital with only one 90ml ready made bottle, steriliser wasnt even set up and this was having known the arrival date due to a scheduled C section. I just hoped to breastfeed and for the second time that didn't work for me and I hadn't prepared myself for bottle feeding. We use Hipp formula which is often hard to source so I try to buy 3 at a time if there are plenty on the shelves and I go and buy more once I've opened our last box. You will get into a rhythm of what you need and how often you need it, take it one day at a time, and week after week you will start to find it getting slightly less overwhelming. Sounds like baby is happy and that is great!

starlady1

Paul Pogba wrote: »

Yes definitely stage 1. Went to 4 shops Sunday , all sold out of apatamil. Wanted some as back up only. Like I said, first time parents to a one week old. We’re not perfect.

If you can't get it in the shops, your local chemist should be able to get it for you.

Milly33

Hope ye are all doing great OP!!! God there are so many ins and outs of the bottles, but plan it whatever works for ye.. My tuppence would be defo make the bottles up in one go to save ye time...And the boiling of the water, we used to just fill the kettle or put however much fresh water we needed (tap water) to make up the bottle.

Boil it let it stand for a few mins, pour into the bottles and make up all the feeds in one go... Store and warm up when needed or just give them at room temp.. Will say it is important to use hot water and not cooled completely boiled water, as for reasons others have stated..

Would not worry to much about the brands either most of them are the same, used SMA for both of ours and non of this follow on milk, just went from 1 - 2