Bottlefeeding
It’s perfectly safe and healthy to bottlefeed your baby with an infant formula, instead of breastfeeding, but you must follow the manufacturer’s instructions very carefully. When you feed your baby, give him plenty of warm, loving attention and eye contact.
Preparing Formulas
Infant formula products range from relatively inexpensive dried-milk-based powders to ready-to-use but expensive liquid milk products. Infant formulas are enriched with vitamins and iron, and are carefully formulated to make them as close as possible to human milk. They’re usually based on cow’s milk, but there are soy-based formulas for babies who cannot digest, or who have an allergy to, ordinary milk. If you’re unsure which product to choose, ask your health care provider to recommend one. Whichever formula you use, it’s essential to keep all the bottles, spoons, measuring cups, and nipples absolutely clean, because a newborn baby is very vulnerable to infection. It’s also very important always to wash your hands thoroughly before making up formula or bottlefeeding your baby.
Keeping Everything Clean
You’ll quickly develop your own routine for cleaning bottles and nipples. For sterilizing, you can use the hot cycle on your dishwasher, but be aware that rubber nipples will deteriorate quickly in the heat of a dishwasher. You can also sterilize equipment if you put it in a large pot, cover it with water, and boil for 10 minutes. All items must be fully submerged during the boiling period. Use tongs to remove the hot bottles and allow them to cool before filling. Sterilize all feeding equipment until your baby is 12 months old.
Before sterilizing, wash the feeding equipment in hot, soapy water or, if you have one, in a dishwasher. Scrub inside the bottles with a bottle brush. Clean nipples carefully, and rinse everything thoroughly
Measuring And Mixing
Follow the instructions on the can or package exactly when preparing a feeding. Never make the formula “more nourishing” by adding more powder than specified your baby will get too much fat and protein and too little water. And if you always add extra water to the powder, because you want to make the formula more thirst-quenching, you run the risk of undernourishing your baby.
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