New advice dept of health-storing formula milk(baby bottles)

hollydays

My daughter had a baby last week.
Was suprised to hear the nurse telling my daughter,who is bottle feeding,not to make up a supply of bottles and store them in the fridge,but to make them up as she needed them.
They have suggested she can store the boiled water in a flask.This isnt what it says on the SMA milk,and SMA told me the dept of health is giving out this advice to hospitals.I rang the dept.,who eventualyy said that they now realise this info isnt entirely practical,and they will be changing it as for example its not practicle for people with kids in daycare nurseries.
Has anyone else heard about this?Its new to me.

Spendless

My youngest is 3 so since the goalposts will have changed since lunchtime today:rolleyes: my info will be out of date but what I was told for her and her 6 year old brother was the water had to be freshly boiled then allowed to cool, after which you made them up and stored them in fridge, before getting out letting get to room temperature or warming then giving and you couldn't re-boil water, so you had to make sure all water was used/tipped away and start from afresh each time.

Slightly OT-but mine were never bothered about warm milk DD actually disliked it their preference was for cool milk.

hollydays

Dept of health is saying formula milk isnt sterile,and therefore should not be kept for longer than necessary.Theres some things you just wish you hadnt been told!

parsnips

for gods sake, i stored a full days milk in the fridge and it never hurt my 2 children, these people are off their heads, what has changed in 10 years, has the way companys make their formula milk changed, i dont think so

rchddap1

Sounds like at the end of the day you have to do what you feel is right at the time. Same thing with dummies really. I'll be working all this out in around 6 months time myself.

A little voice in my head is saying that life is full of germs and nasties and that babies little immune system will have to get use to them at some point.

Ohhh decisions, decision.

Crispy_Ambulance

I agree that some germs are healthy for babies, but you can get very nasty bugs in milk and that is one thing not to take chances on.

The advice on making up formula is very new so probably won't be on older tins of formula.

jellyhead

i read this advice for making up bottles in an NCT magazine and yes it is very new advice. apparently the tins of formula milk aren't bug free, and sampling found lots of germs in tins of milk.

it confused me a bit though because it did say that making up a bottle, fast-cooling it under the tap and then storing it in a fridge (as long as the fridge is at the correct temp and the bottles aren't stored in the door which can be warmer) is enough to kill off the enterobacter (? can't spell it!!). but it's best not to take the chance. so does that mean they just don't think people are following the procedures correctly enough to ensure safety? maybe they think we don't know the temp of the fridge, don't fast-cool, store milk in the fridge door, leave it in the fridge for longer than 24 hours etc. etc. sounds like a bit of the 'breast is best' message creeping in to me, cynical aren't i :rotfl:

hollydays

The formula company i spoke to did not seem to be changing their advice-i would still store milk the way i used to, if i had a child now (not likely!)but i can see new Mothers will feel they have to follow this advice.I idid have the same cynical thought too jellyhead.I would like to know what is the incidence of harm from this bug.

viccig

With my son I sterilised the bottles and added freshly boiled water to the amount he was drinking at the time. I made up six at a time with only boiled water in and added the scoops of powder when he needed a bottle, this was also handy when we went on trips out, rather than stressing about keeping bottles of milk cool I simply added the correct amount from a sterilised tub that i had measured out earlier.

jellyhead

yes, you can do that. it's really easy. i've got powder containers that you can fill with the correct amount of powder, then it sits in the bottle just under the teat and you mix with powder to the milk when you need the bottle. if baby wants milk to be warmer than room temp or you have a milk that needs to be mixed at a warmer temp then you can put some of the water into the bottle to cool, and then top it up with boiling water from the kettle if you're at home, or from a flask if you're out. that way the water temp is warm but not hot. or you can have the water cooled down to room temp but then just heat it up in a flask before you need to mix it.

i've found this flask invaluable when we're out, available everywhere but i like the newer version with the valve (shown in the link). http://www.boots.com/shop/product_details.jsp?productid=1068450

i put the correct amount of water in the bottle, let it cool, put the correct amount of powder into this holder wehich slots into the bottle (i use avent bottles) http://www.kiddicare.com/invt/xdltomtipcltonatmilkpowde

and then when we want the bottle it just needs heating up a bit using the flask, then mixing with the milk and colief (a remedy for lactose intolerance).

Bossyboots

parsnips wrote:

for gods sake, i stored a full days milk in the fridge and it never hurt my 2 children, these people are off their heads, what has changed in 10 years, has the way companys make their formula milk changed, i dont think so

Same here.