Emergency baby milk

sneezyboots

Thanks for all the replies.

Seems to have gone a little off topic as as I mentioned in the original post- I fully intend to breastfeed and unless there is a medical reason why I can't (or baby can't). I don't want milk in the house as a fall back for me but as an emergency so baby doesn't go hungry. Might seem over the top but lets say I slip down the stairs and end up in hospital- although a lot of you have said baby could come to hospital I'm sure that in pain and whatever, the last thing I would want to worry about is feeding baby. Likewise if something happens to me and hubby is suddenly left with baby in his arms a 24hr supermarket is the last thing he wants to worry about.

It seems you all approve of/recommend Aptamil and now I know cartons exist which sound rather handy I will get a few when I do the next shop Sounds cheaper than buying a whole tub of something which won't get used.

Armchair23

Good luck with the breastfeeding, it's a worthwhile job but takes time, patience and energy. Something that some of us don't always have the resources for or choose not to do.

BF really is a supply and demand system, if you can rest enough keep up the fluids and let the baby suckle when it wants to, the milk production nearly always ups to meet the demand it just doesn't happen overnight.

Like everything in life there are always exceptions. So keeping a couple of packs of ready made milk in a cupboard is not the end of the world and if it gives you reassurance that's a good thing.

I hope you have a wonderful time with your new baby and remember when you're 20 or so nobody cares whether you were bottle fed or when you learned to read !

XX

continualdiamond

You'll be totally fine re getting formula if you need it.

Won't go into details as to why I stopped breast feeding as that isn't what the thread is about but I had too and at 4 am hubby made the journey to asda to get some formula.

In terms of the cartons I use them when out for a longer periods of time. Depending on what brand you get you can just pour them into a bottle, you don't do anything to alter the temperature of them.

My friend uses sma and she had one in a bottle that you just added a disposable teat to it, so a one time use.

mwa

Very sensible idea OP, I have a baby and when he was 3 months old my elder son needed an emergency dash to A+E so I had to leave the baby and my other child with my neighbour as my husband was away- lucky for me I had an emergency carton of ready made formula in the cupboard and had introduced a bottle so this eased a stressful situation.

Top tip- always but the formula your local shop sells- I adopted this approach and when my stay at A+E took longer than hoped, my neighbour was able to nip out and get another carton.

shell_girl

Good luck OP. If you haven't already got it, can I recommend 'The Food of Love' by Kate Evans as an excellent, humorous and realistic introduction to what it's like to breastfeed.

Re the formula, more than one health professional has told me that essentially they're the same, just packaged and marketed differently. They all have to meet the same standards set for nutrition and manufacturing conditions, and are bound by industry code to share their information and recipes.

Recently there was a shortage of one particular type of formula in this country as enterprising individuals were bulk buying it and selling it to the Chinese market. People calling the formula company's helpline panicking about availability of milk for their child were directed to the competitor as it was essentially an identical product. That said, I've heard Mums say that their little one does better on one brand or another, so who knows really?!

Oscar_the_Pug

Hi OP I think the answer really depends on your personality: FWIW I found that having a couple of cartons of ready made formula in the house helped me feel more relaxed about bf because it made me feel happier that I always had a fallback option to keep LO fed.

Mupette

Hi Op

Damn those emotions charging around your body and now your going through the what if's,

Stocking up could be a good thing, but what if baby doesn't like what you got in,

We all ran through senarios of what to do, and get prepared for, there we have the nesting, so not long now hun.

Dont be fretting about this too much, this is the time to be getting ready for the birth, and resting batch cooking, and cleaning (we all did it)

i gave up on bf when mine was 6 weeks, just as well he was loosing weight midwife was as helpful as a chocolate teapot, kept going on about bf but i had nothing to give him, or rather not enough produced.

there are many brands out there and first i tried sma, he hated it, then c &g thankfully he took to that and caught up with his weight.

you are going to have family and friends falling over themselves to help after the birth so they can go out and get what you need, i hear that sending someone out to get the milk, always results in a new baby outfit, they can't help themselves.


try not to think that what happend to the friend will happen to you, try (yes i know) to get it out of your head. and concentrate on relaxing

dizsiebubba

anmarj wrote: »

We only used it because we were going from Scotland to England for a few days and did want him to have an upset tummy with the different taste

You have lost me there....

gayleygoo

My MW advised me to have some cartons in the house "just in case". I would probably go mental at any MW who said this to me now, as it really undermined my confidence and felt she was more or less saying I couldn't do it, when I hadn't even tried yet :mad: However I did get two small cartons, and never used them. Sometimes the BFing was really hard in those early days but I felt less stressed knowing that if I really couldn't handle the next feed my baby wouldn't starve, and that kept me going as I was determined not to give in to the formula. I knew it would get easier though, and it did.

Babies have growth spurts, usually around 6weeks and 4months (although it varies of course), and this is often when a new mum will feel she doesn't have enough milk and resorts to formula. Plenty of feeding and baby cuddles is usually the answer, and the increase in demand for the milk will only last a few days or a week until the body catches up. Topping up with formula at this stage is a common cause of breastfeeding problems, but using expressed milk that Daddy can give can help you get some rest and won't interfere with milk production. However, babies younger than 6 weeks can sometimes get "nipple confusion" by being fed with a bottle or using a dummy, so it's not always the easy answer.

My MW told me all formula brands are the same, the companies aren't really allowed to mess around with the ingredients that much. The packaging and advertising is the major difference, Aptamil tend to claim that theirs is best and their packaging is very fancy, it's also the most expensive and some parents choose it based solely on that, as if the most expensive one is the "best" for their child!

notanewuser

gayleygoo wrote: »

Babies have growth spurts, usually around 6weeks and 4months (although it varies of course), and this is often when a new mum will feel she doesn't have enough milk and resorts to formula. Plenty of feeding and baby cuddles is usually the answer, and the increase in demand for the milk will only last a few days or a week until the body catches up. Topping up with formula at this stage is a common cause of breastfeeding problems, but using expressed milk that Daddy can give can help you get some rest and won't interfere with milk production. However, babies younger than 6 weeks can sometimes get "nipple confusion" by being fed with a bottle or using a dummy, so it's not always the easy answer.

!

Sorry, I disagree with the bolded bit. If you miss a feed because its replaced by a bottle (of whatever) milk production will drop. It's crucial to maintain milk release (by feeding or expressing) whenever baby is hungry) to keep up production.