Bottles & Formula Question (long)

CincyBride08

DD is in the middle of a nursing strike. She will only nurse first thing in the AM and then the rest of the day she down right refuses to take the breast. We're on day5 so I have a feeling this isn't going to change. I'm pumping, but I'm not getting enough for her. She's getting about half breast milk/ half formula. She gets half and half bottles while at daycare, but I just make those bottles the night before so I'm not quite sure how to deal with formula on a larger scale if you kwim. So here are my questions:

1. Do you make a large pitcher of formula in the morning and use that throughout the day or do you just make it bottle by bottle?

2. If she doesn't finish a bottle can you save a half formula/half bm bottle for the next feeding?

3. Do you use a clean bottle/nipple every time or do you just rinse the bottle/nipple off and use it again? At daycare I always send her with 3 bottles and 3 nipples. Now that she's getting a bottle at every feeding we'd have to run our dishwasher half full to give her a fresh bottle at every feeding. I can always wash bottles, but that's a pain in the a$$.

4. What bottles do you use? We've been using the Medela ones simply because I can pump into them. We only have the 5 oz ones so we're going to have to move up to a larger bottle. Should I just stay with the Medela or are there better brands out there? What are some of the cheaper brands? I never realized how expensive bottles were until now.

Sorry these are such novice questions, but since I was bf I never thought about these before.

TIA!

Superchicy

1. Do you make a large pitcher of formula in the morning and use that throughout the day or do you just make it bottle by bottle?  We make it bottle by bottle since we fed her room temp formula, if you are heating them anyway, it might be easier to make a batch at a time.

2. If she doesn't finish a bottle can you save a half formula/half bm bottle for the next feeding?  You shouldn't save it, there are bacteria in there from where she ate.  I'd save it if DD only took a few sips, but not if she ate half of it.

3. Do you use a clean bottle/nipple every time or do you just rinse the bottle/nipple off and use it again? At daycare I always send her with 3 bottles and 3 nipples. Now that she's getting a bottle at every feeding we'd have to run our dishwasher half full to give her a fresh bottle at every feeding. I can always wash bottles, but that's a pain in the a$$.  We always started fresh, but if it was rinsed well right away you could probably reuse and wash well at night. (ETA:  I prefer to wash b/c of the bacteria on the nipple, but I've been desperate with a screaming baby and had use one that was rinsed well but not yet washed)

4. What bottles do you use? We've been using the Medela ones simply because I can pump into them. We only have the 5 oz ones so we're going to have to move up to a larger bottle. Should I just stay with the Medela or are there better brands out there? What are some of the cheaper brands? I never realized how expensive bottles were until now.  We use playtex dropins, I've heard good things about Dr. Browns, but if your DD is doing well with the Medela and there are larger bottles available, I'd just stick with that and get the larger size.

Klmorgan83

1.  We make a pitcher that we use during the day.  We're already dealing with a reflux/fussy baby, and the pitcher helps cut down on the bubbles since there's no shaking invovled.

2.  You aren't supposed to save it.  DS always finishes his bottles so we've never had to deal with it...I know how much I'd hate to throw BM or formula down the drain though!

3.  Clean every time.  We just hand wash all of our anyways, so there's always a clean one around.

4.  We use Playtex drop ins.  They have one of the slowest flow nipples I've found, and that's what DS needs.  We get the Target brand liners, they work just as well.  I like them because there are less parts to wash. 

KittahMama

1. We make it bottle by bottle. 

2. We don't save, we toss.  If you open a bottle of formula even two hours after its been used somewhat is smells off (at least to my super pregnant nose).

3. We try to wash them each time we use them.  DD is bigger now and she was EBF til 5-6 months- so she gets bottles at bedtime now.  I take the bottle out when she wakes up, take it and clean it with soap and water.  We have plenty of bottles to use up but I hate having dirty bottles everywhere.

4. We use Avent, but it is whatever works for your kid.  I liked that there is just the bottle, the nipple and the ring.  I've heard Dr. Browns is great if your LO has colic but has a lot of parts to clean.  I wanted something simple to clean and Avent worked for us!

Good luck!  Hopefully she goes back to the breast.  Bottles are a bit more work.

Ttimes3

1. Do you make a large pitcher of formula in the morning and use that throughout the day or do you just make it bottle by bottle? With J, we just made all of the formula bottles, each morning (bottle by bottle). Duh...I don't know why we never thought to make up a pitcher, since that seems much easier.

2. If she doesn't finish a bottle can you save a half formula/half bm bottle for the next feeding? You can't save formula for a later feeding (like you can straight BM), so any leftovers must be pitched.  

3. Do you use a clean bottle/nipple every time or do you just rinse the bottle/nipple off and use it again? At daycare I always send her with 3 bottles and 3 nipples. Now that she's getting a bottle at every feeding we'd have to run our dishwasher half full to give her a fresh bottle at every feeding. I can always wash bottles, but that's a pain in the a$$. We use(d) a clean/sterilized bottle/nipple for each feeding.

4. What bottles do you use? We've been using the Medela ones simply because I can pump into them. We only have the 5 oz ones so we're going to have to move up to a larger bottle. Should I just stay with the Medela or are there better brands out there? What are some of the cheaper brands? I never realized how expensive bottles were until now. We have always used Avent. Super easy to clean and put together.

johnandkristin

1. We do bottle by bottle. Although, I've been thinking about buying a pitcher because that seems easier. (Especially now that she's eating cereal and we mix her cereal with formula).

2. You can't save a bottle once they've eaten from it. There can be bacteria in there (yuck). I don't even try and save it, even if she's just had a few sips.

3. We use a clean bottle/nipple every time. I agree that washing bottles is a PITA, so we run our dishwasher everyday. Having 3 kids and being a SAHM, it's usually full:)

4. We use Dr. Brown's and have with every child. There are 5 pieces. We bought a dishwasher basket and we put all the pieces in there. It's very easy:) If your child already uses a particular bottle, and does fine with it, I'd stick to that if you can.

Lauren&Joe

1. Do you make a large pitcher of formula in the morning and use that throughout the day or do you just make it bottle by bottle? We make all the bottle the night before and refrigerate them. Then we heat each one before we feed her.

2. If she doesn't finish a bottle can you save a half formula/half bm bottle for the next feeding? Bottles are only good for an hour after they start eating. two outside of the fridge if they haven't eaten off of it.

3. Do you use a clean bottle/nipple every time or do you just rinse the bottle/nipple off and use it again? At daycare I always send her with 3 bottles and 3 nipples. Now that she's getting a bottle at every feeding we'd have to run our dishwasher half full to give her a fresh bottle at every feeding. I can always wash bottles, but that's a pain in the a$$. Clean bottle and nip every time. We bought this sanitizer from BBB that was like $25. It cleans and sanitizes all the bottles at once (DD takes about 6 oz, 6 times a day). That way we don't have to run the diswasher. DH was washing them by hand, but that was a big PITA.

4. What bottles do you use? We've been using the Medela ones simply because I can pump into them. We only have the 5 oz ones so we're going to have to move up to a larger bottle. Should I just stay with the Medela or are there better brands out there? What are some of the cheaper brands? I never realized how expensive bottles were until now. We use the Playtex VentiAire ones. No real reason other than they seemed like a "middle of the road" bottle from a cost perspective and DD never had a problem with them.

KYmama9286

1. Do you make a large pitcher of formula in the morning and use that throughout the day or do you just make it bottle by bottle? We made them bottle by bottle and every now and then I would make like 5 bottles in the morning and store them in the fridge. DS always had his concentrated and honestly it was too confusing to figure out how to concentrate them in a large quantity. If you are going to be home and have access to your fridge I would make a pitcher each morning just to save on time.

2. If she doesn't finish a bottle can you save a half formula/half bm bottle for the next feeding? Nope-- with formula its only good for an hour once the baby has started eating from it. It's a huge pain and waste especially for Nicholas who never eats the same amount and it varies by a few oz. We wasted a lot.

3. Do you use a clean bottle/nipple every time or do you just rinse the bottle/nipple off and use it again? I used a fresh bottle and nipple for each bottle when he was on formula. Now that he is on milk I will rinse and re-use. I dont know why but I feel less bad doing it with milk vs formula. Obviously if you are in a pinch its not that big a deal to just rinse and reuse but I wouldnt do it on a regular basis. We had a HUGE stockpile of bottles (about 30) and would rinse the bottles each night that were used and wait until we had a decent amount and run them in the dishwasher or we would wash by hand which was a PITA.

4. What bottles do you use? If your DD is doing fine with the basic Medela bottles I would use these Evenflo Bottles. They fit on a medela pump and they are SUPER cheap (hence us having about 30 bottles). DS had no problem using these and the medela bottles. They also sell them in like a pack of 9 for about $9.99. They come with the slow flow nipples so you may want to move up to a size 2 nipple depending on what your DD is used to.

IAM4UK

johnandkristin:

1. We do bottle by bottle. Although, I've been thinking about buying a pitcher because that seems easier. (Especially now that she's eating cereal and we mix her cereal with formula).

2. You can't save a bottle once they've eaten from it. There can be bacteria in there (yuck). I don't even try and save it, even if she's just had a few sips.

3. We use a clean bottle/nipple every time. I agree that washing bottles is a PITA, so we run our dishwasher everyday. Having 3 kids and being a SAHM, it's usually full:)

4. We use Dr. Brown's and have with every child. There are 5 pieces. We bought a dishwasher basket and we put all the pieces in there. It's very easy:) If your child already uses a particular bottle, and does fine with it, I'd stick to that if you can.

This!

linzpinz14

I'm just going to answer #2.  But I would not mix BM and formula.  Depending on what you read, BM can be reheated 1 time.  So if she does not finish the bottle, you can put it back in the fridge and then reheat it later.  I believe formula must be used within an hour of starting to drink it.  I would make the bottles separate, so you aren't wasting any BM ( I had to EP and didn't produce enough, so I hated seeing mine go to waste!)

Oh and #4 - I think Dr. Browns bottles also fit onto the Medela pump.  I used them, even though I would pump into Medela and then once I had enough for 1 bottle, I combined them into a Dr. Browns.