Need Advice About Formula-- Heating and Travel

You could try putting warm water in the bottle and taking the formula with you and just mix when you need it.

I only formula fed my oldest for 2 months, but we did room temperature Nursery Water and bought the formula containers and just mixed them as we needed them. I did use a travel bottle warmer to heat frozen breast milk while we traveled and it worked great. We never had a problem with it at all. I would not leave a mixed bottle out for over an hour. Milk spoils quickly.

T.,

I am a Pedi nurse and what we tell patients is not to leave the formula out for more than one hour If it is mixed up. If you have to travel and the baby needs to eat in about an hour try heating the water (or leave it at room temp) and then when the baby needs to eat mix the formulia right before he eats. No formula should be left out for more than an hour, if it is it should be tossed out.

Good luck, P.

Hi T., I was afraid of those travel warmers. When my son was little and liked his bottle warm, I would find a bathroom and run the bottle (pre-filled with water from home) under the hot water. Then I would add the formula powder to the water and shake. I bought these little dispenser bags by The First Years at Target that you would scoop the powdered formula into. As he got older he didn't mind room temperature formula. (I never thought about a thermos that would have been great!)

T.,
I don't think that you are able to heat a bottle and give it to him an hour or so later. They say that you should give it to them right away and then discard anything they don't eat.
What we do for our son is take bottles with us that already have water in them and prepare them when he is ready to eat. My son got used to not eating the bottle heated up. I hope this helps!
H.

You can buy some hand/foot warmers at walmart. When you're ready to heat a bottle, crack one open and wrap it around the bottle for a few minutes. You can also wrap a blanket or rag around them both to heat it faster.

Also, with summer coming quick, you can carry water in your car and it will stay plenty warm to mix powdered formula with.

I've never heated my daughter's bottles but when we go to town I usually take a bottle with the powder formula in it already measured out and add bottled water to it when she gets hungry.

It says on the formula can that I have, a mixed bottle is good for up to 2 hours. I would think heated formula would sour faster especially since the weather is warming up. You might see if he'll take it room temperature now that he is older.

I know very little about formula because I nurse but I learned a trick from a co-worker. When we travel and I take bottles with us, I boil water and put it in a small thermos. Then when I need to heat the bottle, I put the bottle in the thermos for a short period of time and it works like a charm. Just be sure to not fill the thermos clear full or when you put the bottle in, you will have boiling water everywhere. I hope that is helpful!

Not a good idea to mix and heat it that far in advance...
We used to take water in the bottle (really hot) and powder seperately then mix it right before we gave it to our daughter. Sometimes it wasn't really WARM, but she didn't care! As long as it is not cold, it shouldn't hurt their little bellies!
I hope this helps...
C.
Mom and foster mom to 7 kiddos from 4 to 18!!!

A friend taught me a great trick to handle this. Assuming you use powdered formula, just take a thermos with hot water in it. Then take a regular bottle of water along. You can combine the hot and cold water to get it the perfect temperature for your baby. It can be a small hassle, but so worth it to keep baby happy. My son insisted on warm water for about his first year so I had to do that a lot. He was never happy with room temp water.

I agree, I have a bottle warmer that my husband uses for his occasional night feedings of refrigerated breast milk for our baby, and I hate the thing. I don't know why he messes with it. If you are on formula, just skip the warmer and use powdered formula. Works great!

I think they have some great stuff at BabiesRUs. We had a car bottle warmer when one of my boys was little and it worked fine. There are also some products available that will keep bottles cold and/or hot.

Not sure what formula you use but Enfamil has a 4-pk of 8 oz cans of ready-to-eat formula. I loved it because it was so convenient especially when being away from home for a while.

I would keep warm water in a good thermos and just mix it when you're ready for it. They even have formula in pre-measured packaging for on the go moms.

When our children were that age, we would put a water bottle on the front dash of the car when we traveled, either the sun (in the summer) or the heater (in the winter) would warm up the water and keep it at about the right temp. You can buy travel packs of formula that are pre measured and easy to pour in to bottles on the road, or they also make a travel tupperware like container that you can measure out three or four bottles worth of formula into seperate sections (a lot cheaper than the travel packs).

Room temperature or right out of the fridge will do just fine. At 4 mos. old there is no need to warm up the formula except for personal preference. I used room temperature formula at night time and right out of the fridge during the day. I live in a hot climate. After the 2nd month, I always figured my kids would want a nice cold bottle of milk/formula the way I enjoy a nice cold glass of milk. If you give them cold water bottles or cold juice bottles, what's the difference if you give them cold milk/formula bottles? They survived and I never stressed about warming up bottles.

For all 3 of our children we used room temp water and powder formula. We never had to worry about heating it up. A friend of mine would give her babies bottles right out of the fridge w/o heating them up. Hope this helps.