My daughter is 11 weeks, and I have been using Nursery water bottle water with flouride to make her formula. How long until we can jst use tap water? I have heard varying answers, such as Never use tap water, only boil water, only use Nursery water, and even only use bottled water. I live in LS, so my municple water is safe. Please, help me here. The formula container and website say one thing, parents websites say something else....very confused.
Thanks for all the great responses. We had our water checked, and the pediatrician said our tap water was fine. She said it does indeed need to be flourinated water as many of you mentioned. She also said that as long as you don't have really old pipes in your house, and aren't on well water, most city tap water is completely safe for babies. I could not, however, find on any website if Brita or PUR filters remove the flouride that the doctors recommend the water contain. So for now...we are tap watering it and she seems good:-)
I know you already have some answers, but thought I would share that I asked my pediatrician the same question and he told me that tap water is ok anytime...
i don't even know what nursery bottle water is! is flouride safe for babies? I thoguht the reason we don't have children brush teeth with flouride t.paste til later age is they might swallow. oh well ...we had both of our bottle fed kids drink tap water except trips when we would use bottled..mostly...and they turned out fine. might want to ask a pediatrican about this one.
hmm no one told me not to use tap water and used it for all 3 of my kids when they got formula bottles and are fine. In fact most tap water has flouride in it already so you don't have to use drops. When we lived in California the tap water didn't have enough flouride it in so the doctor prescribed drops to put in it but he never did say not to use the tap water. When we moved to other states the water had sufficient flouride so didn't use the drops anymore. I didn't boil it either but was told not to use hot tap water because some older houses used pipes with lead in them so the hot water could cause lead to be in the water. I would warm water in a bowl in the microwave and set the cold tap water bottle inside of the hot water to warm it or I used a coffee thermos and in the morning would heat the water and put in the coffee thermos and have instant hot water all day and that system worked well when you were out and didn't have a way to warm their formula. Usually the thermos water was a little too hot and would try to make their bottle about 1/2 hour before their feeding so it would be cool enough for them to drink.
Your kids are going to drink tap water someday and people that drink bottle water all the time aren't getting the flouride and other minerals they need that is put into tap water.
as for the comment of not using flouride. Yes you do need to use flouride and tap water has it in it. It is good for their teeth and highly recommended by doctors and dentists. Kids that don't have flouride at an early age usually have more cavities and bad teeth.
My babies were breast fed until 4 months then bottle fed. I only used nursery water if we were going on a long car ride and I needed bottled water to make the bottles (and I didn't want to use gas station water). I used tap water the rest of the time and they are healthy 3 and 2 year old babies now. I never heard anybody say you had to use nursery water. That was news to me when I read this.
Yeah, I thought the fluoride was a no-no, too. I've always used tap water for my girls' bottles.
I feel ya on the formula roller coaster, too. It's just insane. We've finally settled on Neocate (go figure- it's the most expensive you can get...anywhere...at a whopping $47 for a 14oz. can...). But hey, we don't have a choice with the milk allergy and DGE. These babies can be so dang expensive!
I have always used tap water.On all of my children,nieces,nephews,and daycare kids.I actually have heard some say not to use nursery water.I would just ask your pediatrician what he/she prefers that you use.
My husband used to test and sell water filtration systems and you might be surprised what all is in the "safe" water that you get out of your tap. With our first one, we used nothing but filtered water when we did make up bottles. We are a little more relaxed now but I would still recommend filtering the water for the baby. Actually the most harmful thing in the tap water is probably the Chlorine that they generally put in to "clean" the water. It is funny to me how paranoid we are about our kids drinking pool water but then we give them tap water that has almost as much Chlorine in it as the pool! I must admit that I am guilty of this too. It can be really hard your system though. The flouride thing is a major spoof as far as I'm concerned. I had thought that was one of the benefits of tap water compared to bottled until I found out that the city I grew up in does not add flouride to their water and everyone in my family has great teeth. We didn't do bottled or filtered water growing up. If you are really worried about your tap water, there are lots of companies that will come and test your water for free as long as you let them go through their little sales pitch which can be very convincing. I would just get a Britta filter or something like that though instead of buying bottled water constantly or spending a ton of money on a water filtration system for the house. Just don't put the pitcher in the frigde so it doesn't take as long to warm up. It is much less expensive and you are still getting anything out of the water that you don't want in that little tummy. Look for a filter that has a carbon based filter.
Hi J.,
I am also a new mom and a dentist, so I thought I could provide some insight to this question. Fluoride is NOT a spoof! This is my job I read statistics and studies all the time showing the proven benefits of fluoridated water on cavity prevention. PERMANENT tooth buds start formation at 6 weeks IN UTERO! This is why fluoride is necessary for children. The fluoride ion incorporates into the hydroxyappitite during tooth formation, thus making the tooth structure stronger and more decay resistant. The reason we don't want kids swallowing toothpaste is because it can cause stomach upset and most parents use way to much toothpaste. The reality is that most kids swallow the toothpaste anyway. If you have other questions you can please feel free to contact me directly.
In response to the people saying flouride is a no no so they use tap water:
TAP WATER HAS ADDED FLOURIDE
IF you want to get water that does not have flouride you have to get bottled water. If you want to use tap water and still get the flouride but not the other minerals, you can buy afiltration system that filters out all the stuff other than flouride.
My concern with tap water isn't flouride. If you remember a few months back an article on cnn and other news sources talked about the high content of dilluted prescription drugs in our tap water. I prefer bottled water because it makes me feel better. It might psychological, but so be it.
I live in LS as well and always mixed the formula with tap water. Since your baby won't be used to the minerals in the tap water you might ease her into it (mix it with what you have been using 50/50 for a week before going 100%). Yeah, I don't know why they put flouride in nursery water, since it's for teeth health. The amount of flouride in water shouldn't be harmful, but at that age it's not necessary. They probably put it in now because there was a study recently that showed children who drank bottled water weren't getting enough flouride, so now they are marketing a flouride enriched bottled water.
If there's a reason you're worried about tap water, ask your pediatrician, mine told us from the start that it was fine and we've had no problems. You do want to be careful if you travel though, not all tap water is the same and other ones may have a different mix of minerals that could upset her system. I only used nursery water when we were away from home.
I wouldn't use anything with flouride, it's not good for babies and I personally think things like "nursery water" are just scams to get more money out of parents. I'd suggest either getting a Brita or some other type of pitcher to filter your water or put a filtration device directly on the tap. We have filtered water on a refrigerator, so that would be an option too if you have it.
