I don't believe Tommy Tippee!

[Feline]

Few people use Milton these days. Microwave sterilisers and microwave pouches are very popular. The pouches you just put some water in and close like a zip lock bag with your items in, then microwave for a set time. They last for a few uses then you have to bin them and use a new one. Handy because you can take them anywhere with you (that has a microwave) without needing anything bulky, messy or spilly. And you can keep stuff sterile in there to take out with you as well.

[hellymedic]

Sounds good. Have you used this Tommy Tippee thing?

[Greenbank]

The major selling point of the Tommy Tippee thing is that gives you a bottle that you can give to a child in about a minute from pressing the button (assuming you have a sterilised bottle to hand).

This is a lot less faff that having to have some boiled water that is still hot enough to kill any bacteria in the formula powder (e.g. 70 deg C) and then needs to be cooled down to body temperature before giving it to the baby (either running it under a tap or sitting it in a bowl of cold water). Even if the kettle water was at the right temperature it was still 5 plus minutes of faffing, and I lost count of the number of times I made this even longer by instinctively setting the kettle to boil again, not being sure whether it had been boiled recently, or filling it up from the tap so it needed to be boiled again.

[rr]

I always did: 1/3 boiling water, 1/3 cold, add powder, shake, final third cold water, drink. Tap water at home, bottled if out. Sterilised bottles.
Mini had worked it out and would try to do her own before she was two. Took 1 minute.
Seems a lot for a machine to do the same.

[Kim]

I always did: 1/3 boiling water, 1/3 cold, add powder, shake, final third cold water, drink. Tap water at home, bottled if out. Sterilised bottles.
Mini had worked it out and would try to do her own before she was two. Took 1 minute.
Seems a lot for a machine to do the same.

Presumably the machine isn't doing the same, but is rather boiling *all* the water and then rapidly cooling it to an appropriate temperature by cunning use of heat exchangers...  ETA: Nope, doesn't sound like it is.  Rubbish!

How important this is probably depends on your water supply.  While I appreciate the importance of sterilising bottles, I'm sure BRITISH tap^[1] water is Mostly Harmless, even for babies.


_{[1] Assuming it's not the bathroom tap, fed from the tank with the dead pigeon.}

[barakta]

According to my friend who used to work for DEFRA and saw the research on these things (and researched obsessively for her own babies) it is the milk powder which needs sterilising so as long as hot  70 degrees+ water has come into contact with the powder for $time and any colder water is safe then this should be fine for most babies (babies with medical needs may differ).

[Kim]

Ah-ha!  That makes more sense.

Not sure about this whole baby business.  It seems like hard work.

[geraldc]

Breast milk  formulas around the world are a lot more fun than the UKs. In Japan, Meiji's formula is also sold in bars like chocolate. You break up the bar, mix up with hot water, and no more measuring.  In China they have a version that uses pods like Nespressos.

Assuming that you can breast feed it does seem quite convenient, apart from the fact that only one parent can do it, and it chains them to sleep debt for a few months.

[caerau]

Not sure about this whole baby business.  It seems like hard work.

Certainly only a half of one is easier on the stomach.

[arabella]

Seems like a load of faff.  Just make up tomorrow's supply of an evening and put in the fridge.  No need to warm it up, surely?
(aample size of 1, he is now a medical student, for work/domestic reasons the other one got me for longer instead)

[Feline]

Seems like a load of faff.  Just make up tomorrow's supply of an evening and put in the fridge.  No need to warm it up, surely?
(aample size of 1, he is now a medical student, for work/domestic reasons the other one got me for longer instead)

Yeah, that's exactly what I did when my son went onto bottles eventually. Always steam sterilised a bunch of bottles and made up 24 hrs feeds to stick in the fridge. Microwave for 45 secs and voila. No dramas at all and the baby didn't have to even wait a minute. Plus if they are chilled you can put them in a cool bag to take out with you or to nursery.

[barakta]

I seem to recall when my nephew was born (late 2013) that teh ROOLZ were that you couldn't leave 'pre made up bottles' in the fridge for more than 12 hours or THE BABY WOULD DIE kinda thing... In practice most of my parent-friends left it 24-48 without worrying.

[Butterfly]

I seem to recall when my nephew was born (late 2013) that teh ROOLZ were that you couldn't leave 'pre made up bottles' in the fridge for more than 12 hours or THE BABY WOULD DIE kinda thing... In practice most of my parent-friends left it 24-48 without worrying.

Yes,  the advice changed to using 70° water some time in the last 15 years,  and I think in the last 10. Breastfeeding is much less faff, and you can do it in your sleep,  so you get much more sleep,  speaking as someone who has done both. 

[barakta]

In Sister's case bottles were a supplement either with expressed milk cos nephew had tongue tie and struggled to latch and later needed formula supplementation. Sister's health pre/during pregnancy wasn't fantastic.

[caerau]

I seem to recall when my nephew was born (late 2013) that teh ROOLZ were that you couldn't leave 'pre made up bottles' in the fridge for more than 12 hours or THE BABY WOULD DIE kinda thing... In practice most of my parent-friends left it 24-48 without worrying.

Yeah, the hysteria attached to this sort of thing is rather incredible.  It's a wonder life has survived for 3.8 billion years really when clearly we've only acquired knowledge on how to survive since the 50s or so. 

[Kim]

Yeah, the hysteria attached to this sort of thing is rather incredible.  It's a wonder life has survived for 3.8 billion years really when clearly we've only acquired knowledge on how to survive since the 50s or so. 

Not really.  For the overwhelming majority of that period, most humans would die in infancy.

Modern technology such as sewers and pasteurisation saves countless lives, it's just that it had been invented by the time we were born so it's considered normal and ordinary and just a part of the way the world works.  That it gets taken to excess to sell gadgets is a prime example of a #FirstWorldProblem

[hellymedic]

Quite. Breast-feeding is the most successful method of feeding but babies STILL die if it fails and the infant is not rescued with bottles.

Bottle feeding is potentially fraught with hazards, especially in the Third World.

[caerau]

I think the infant mortality rate was rather more to do with diphtheria, yellow fever, scarlet fever, polio, measles, mumps, smallpox, etc. than whether they were fed the correct milk or whether it was massively sterile or not.
There were lots of reasons people died early back then - heck the odds of surviving giving birth weren't great - you can't explain that with making sure feedants are the correct temperature.


Wet nurses were extremely common in the past if breastfeeding from the mother was not possible.  They had ways around it before sterilisation of milk became feasible or recognised.


Not that I'm rubbishing the idea of being sterile I hasten to add - yes that is an important thing too (one of the major ones yes), it's just massively overblown to sell gadgets now as you say - possibly to the point of actually being harmful these days.

[alexb]

At a guess, I would say that this is a bio-film that has built up somewhere to the point where it can dislodge and then floats through as a thin film.
These tend to be black coloured (they're what you get in Camelbacks for example). Often the biofilm is caused by bacteria (the bacteria secrete a sugary film that they live in as protection).

so technically speaking it's not "mould" and it will test for "carbon", so they are being truthful, it depends on how you look.
If you look in a different way you might get a different answer.

Interestingly, or not, my in-laws in France are bottle feeding my nephew and the advice in France is to wash the bottles and teats as you would anything else. Shake and air-dry thoroughly. Powdered feed is made up with cold bottled water (Evian seems to the standard in France) and not warmed up.

So a big change from all the fuss of sterilising bottles and warming very carefully to get the right temperature.

[hellymedic]

Air drying makes a lot of sense to me.

What is new to me is the apparent need to 'sterilise' the milk powder by mixing with HOT water.

The assumption previously was that a dry powder would harbour few bugs and feeds could be made up from cooled water from the kettle.

[fuzzy]

Not sure about this whole baby business.  It seems like hard work.

They don't get a lot easier when the progress from babies to smalls (and on up to brats, teenagers and students).

Our regime was breast feeding. I think most expectant mothers suffer from a side effect of pregnancy- sharpened elbows. Son 1 or 2 would wake and require feeding. Swift application of sharpened elbow to the ribs of the sperm donor and off I would trot to collect the noisemaker. Hand nosimaker to dearly beloved who would attach to the correct vessel and then drift off to sleep, leaving sperm donor awake to a) keep noisemaker awake long enough to finish feeding and b) do the neccesary cleaning up and tucking in afterwards.

[rafletcher]

What is new to me is the apparent need to 'sterilise' the milk powder by mixing with HOT water.

The assumption previously was that a dry powder would harbour few bugs and feeds could be made up from cooled water from the kettle.

This. Is there some sort of special bug (over and above the normal air- and skin-borne stuff that's going to get into every baby) that lives in powdered feeds that it needs special sterilising?