Best Way to Bottle-Feed Your Newborn Baby

Some parents decide to give their baby one bottle of formula or expressed breast milk a day, to let Mom get some needed sleep or a chance to get out of the house. If you use powdered infant formula, it’s easy to mix up one bottle at a time.

• Be extremely cautious when warming a bottle of formula in a microwave. Formula heats unevenly and can scald your baby’s mouth. Make sure to shake it very well before testing it on your wrist. If it’s too warm, add more cold formula, then shake it and test it again. Avoid heating expressed breastmilk in a microwave, since it may reduce anti-infective properties.
• Cool an over-warm bottle by adding some cold milk or formula from the refrigerator.

• Freeze expressed breastmilk in small amounts (two to four ounces) in clean glass or hard plastic bottles. Allow some room for expansion during freezing. Mark the storage date and use before six months. Thawed breastmilk should be con­sumed within forty-eight hours.
• Freeze expressed breastmilk in an ice cube tray. (Each cube is about one ounce.) Store the cubes in a plastic bag, and mark the storage date. Defrost the cubes in a liquid measuring cup and pour into a bottle.
• If you’re traveling and need to keep formula or breastmilk cold, put reusable, self-filled, plastic frozen ice balls in the bot­tles. They won’t dilute the formula or breastmilk. Or keep the bottles in a small cooler.
• If you want to take the chill out of a bottle when eating out, ask for a glass half-filled with hot water and place the bottle in the glass for a minute or more.
• For an Even Flow
• Regulate the flow of formula by loosening the bottle collar if the flow is too slow, or tightening it if the flow is too fast.
• Enlarge nipple holes, if necessary, by inserting toothpicks and boiling the nipples for three minutes, or by sticking a very hot needle into the nipple a few times. If the hole is too big, toss the nipple and start using the extras you bought.
• To prevent powdered formula from lumping, put the powder in first, then add water. Cap the bottle or pinch the nipple shut, and shake vigorously. Or use a wire whisk and warm water to help dissolve formula more easily.

• Eliminate air from bottles with disposable liners by pressing up on the liner until the liquid reaches the tip of the nipple. This allows your baby to drink in an upright position. (Use leftover liners to cover recipe-type index cards!)
• Have your older baby use bottle straws inserted into traditional nipples. Formula will flow evenly no matter what position the bottle is in.