What is your bottle feeding system?

[khanne]

Now that my daughter is almost exclusively bottle fed I am wondering what other formula-moms methods are. Hoping to get some good tips.

I use the Avent bottles and powdered formula. My daughter drinks about 20-25 ounces a day. I have 6 4 ounce bottles and 5 9 ounce. Plus some extra caps and nipples.

About twice a day I prepare 2 8 ounce bottles of formula by heating bottled water slightly and mixing right in the bottle using a regular cap. I then split these into 4 ounce bottles with nipples and pop in the fridge for serving later. I find the warm water makes the powder disolve nicely. When a bottle is needed I micro a dish of water for 2 minutes then place the bottle in for 2 minutes. So far no luck serving cold formula.

When I am done with the bottle I rinse and place in a small bowl in sink to be washed when a few pile up. I use the Avent bottle brush to scrub which I think works much better than a standard bottle brush. Once the bottles are clean I pop them in the Avent micro sterilizer and then onto a drying rack to dry. Usually by the time they are dry they are ready to be filled again.

When out I bring premade bottles with ice packs in a regular lunch cooler bag.

I'm hoping to get some ideas for shortcuts. Especially for night time feeds. My daughter screams when when waiting for her bottle! I also feel like I am constantly washing bottles and I am thinking of switching to disposibles. But for some reason they don't appeal to me.

[egoldber]

Here's a really good thread on bottle feeding from a few months ago: http://www.windsorpeak.com/dcforum/DCForumID4/378.html

When I weaned to formula, my DD was taking about 30 ounces a day. I used to make a batch ahead of time using my blender. I followed the instructions on the can for using one level measuring cup of formula and that made about 30 ounces. I made a batch the night before and then the next day, I just poured it into bottles as I needed it. At the end of the day, I put all the bottles and accessories in the dishwasher. I had enough bottles so that I only needed to run the dishwasher every other day (about a dozen bottles). At some point I switched to disposables. I really liked the drop-in liners and they work with almost all disposable bottle systems.

Will your baby take bottles at room temperature? For nighttime, you could then have water sitting in a bottle, add the formula and make it right then. It wouldn't be warm, but it wouldn't be cold either. That might be acceptable.

If you really want your baby to take cold bottles, you may want to try gradually warming the bottle less and less to see if that works. This also seems to work best if you feed baby before she is really hungry and is therefore more patient.

HTH,

[bnme]

I used larger bottles to mix formula at first, too. Now that DS is taking more I bought a Saftey 1st pitcher at BRU and mix in 32ounce batches. Then I just fill the bottles from there.

I also started using RTF nursettes at night (just last night, actually) so I don't have to warm or mix .Worried about bubbles when mixing and serving immediatly, but have actually never tried so it may not evern be an issue. The nursettes could get expensive but just expermenting right now.

BTW, on the RTF does it stain? I haven't had any problems with powder or bm and have never pretreated or anything. Should RTF spitups be rinsed or anything -the colr is so much darker?
Just wondereing.

[egoldber]

I did find that RTF and concentrate stained much worse than powder. Rinsing helps, but using Biz and Zout were especially helpful.

If you are worried about bubbles, you can also add Mylicon drops (I used a generic version) to the bottle after you mix it. But the bubbles never bothered my DD.

HTH,