Bottle Feeding

46. What you need to bottle feed
To ensure that bottle-feeding is a happy experience for you and your baby, you must be scrupulous about hygiene, and have everything you need-the formula milk, equipment, bibs, brushes, cleaner and sterilizers – ready in advance. Make sure you have enough bottles, teats and caps to make up feeds for a 24-hour period. To save time prepare all the feeds for 24 hours in one batch and store them in a refrigerator. Make up fresh feeds when you are down to two bottles of made-up feed in the refrigerator.

47. washing & sterilizing equipment
Milk is the perfect breeding ground for bacteria, which could make your baby very ill, so you need to sterilize all bottles, teats, and caps by one of the methods shown here. But before sterilizing, all items must be washed out thoroughly using a bottle brush with warm water, liquid detergent, and then rinsed well. If you rub the inside of a teat with salt, the scraping action will remove any trapped milk traces from the teat. Then allow all rinsed items to drain on kitchen paper, not the draining board. Don’t warm the feed until you need it, or try to keep milk warm in a thermos. After a feed, discard any milk left in the bottle.

48. managing a bottle-feeding routine
Bottle feed your baby when he seems hungry, not by the clock. Newborn babies often need as many as seven to eight feeds a day, taking about 50 ml (2 fl oz) at each feed. So put at least this amount of feed into each of the six bottles to begin with. By six months you will be making up feeds of 200ml (7 fl oz). as a rough guide, your baby will require about 150 ml of milk per kilogram of body weight (or 2,5 fl oz per 1 lb) every 24 hours. Before you begin, check the flow from the teat (three should be several drops per second), and the heat of the milk (which ideally should be at room remperature). Try a few drops on your wrist first to make sure it is not too hot. After six months on infant formula, your baby  may need supplement of iron of vitamin D, or may need to be put on follow-on milk which has extra protein and vitamins. If in doubt, check with your surgery.

49. making up a powder formula
Infant powder formula usually comes as a powder in tins, which you mix up as needed. You will need to have a supply of made up bottles in the fridge ready to give as soon as they are needed. Make up the correct levels following the instructions on the tinexactly. You can do one bottle, or a batch of bottles, at a time, whichever is more convenient for you. With the measuring scoop from the formula pack, add loosely filled scoops to each measure of water as directed. Always start with fresh cold water from the mains, boiled, and cooled once. Never use mineral water. You can mix the formula directly into the bottle(s), or via a jug. Once poured, seal the bottle with the disk and ring, but not the teat, and shake well to mix.

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