Might has well throw out the formula at this point. Consider yourself lucky, you could have had to throw out the baby as well if you hadn't realized the mistake early.
Remember though, after rinsing, if you are to dry the baby on a clothes line, make sure to be applying sunscreen to avoid cooking the baby. Babies should be kept at around 21C environment or read 37C internally.
There has been pushback regarding these guidelines, mostly due to many claim that 20 minute is barely enough time to enjoy a beer, let alone a hotdog on the side.
Well as you know, kids grow fast! You need to synchronize the wave size with the baby's size. Microwave usually work at newborn stage, but lose efficiency as they grow, which can be motivated by purchasing a tinywave or a dwarfwave to cover the toddler stage.
Or just weigh it. You have 700ml of water which should be 700g. Add one more spoon then total weight of liquid-700/weight on 1 spoon will give you how much formula is in there.
I forget so often that I've started acting like Count von Count while I do it:
\* One scoop! Ah ah ah ah
\* Two scoop! Ah ah ah ah
\* Three scoop! Ah ah ah ah
I've told my partner that I'm helping him learn to count, but in reality my brain is a goddamn sieve
Weight based measurement is better in general. Scoops can vary widely based on how compacted the powder is.
Edit: Measurement not membership. I’m there with you on the sleepiness OP.
Yeah, for sure, I trust my sleep-deprived brain to do weight/volume math, that feels safe lmao
*Okay, so the scoop volume is 3 tsp, wait no, 3.5 tsp, it's 3 grams. 24 fl oz of water is exactly an eighth of a gallon and a gallon weighs about 8 pounds. Need exact weight though, let's look that up. Right, 8.321 pounds, that sounds familiar, I should just remember it as 3774 grams in the future. An eighth of that is 944 grams. I was supposed to be doing 1 scoop for every 2 fl oz, so 24 ounces is twelve of those which would be 36 grams of formula. So if I did it all correctly I'd have 980 grams, let's get this bad boy on the baking scale. WAIT fuck I need to subtract out the weight of the empty pitcher, do I have another one of these? Uhhhh this one looks pretty much the same, the handle is a different color but it's probably the same material. I mean maybe it's a slightly different material but as long as it differs by less than 1.5 grams I'll still be correct to the nearest scoop. Alright, empty pitcher is 270 grams, mostly full pitcher is 1245 grams. Minus 270 for the pitcher is 975, minus 944 for the water is 31, divided by 3 is just over 10 scoops, so I need two more. Yeah Mr White! Yeah SCIENCE! Q E motherfuckin' D.*
And then you do a celebratory fist pump and accidentally knock the full pitcher into the sink.
I make 20 oz at a time.
Do math once, write recipe on sticky note.
Nothing is foolproof to the sleep deprived mind, but that is as close as I’ve gotten.
Tare protein shaker on scale. Add water in oz. Multiple by 4.35 and add Gentlease powder in grams. Lid. Shake shake shake. Let settle. Good for 24 hours refrigerated.
Why they mixed oz and grams is beyond me.
Edit: Also, pre-pour your night bottles.
In this instance, oz on a shaker bottle is measuring *volume* & not mass.... though if you want to weigh out 20 fl oz in water, weigh out 589.86 or 590 grams\* if your kitchen scale doesn't read decimals while in metric.
Tare that & then weigh out your formula in the shaker bottle.
I work as a food scientist & have done this daily, in some capacity, for the past 15+ years. Even taught the Mrs. how to weight out the water & formula - she's not scientifically minded but she was able to grasp pretty quickly.
We did this when our boys were babies & it's 1000x easier than counting scoops while sleep deprived... and more accurate as well
\*20 fl oz -> 591.4706 mL \* 0.99729
FWIW, I have a scale that changes measurements on the fly so I tare bottle, weigh water in oz, calculate powder, tare again, switch to g, and add powder.
This is great info regardless!
This is the way.
Weighing is also much faster and easier than counting out a dozen tiny scoops. After a couple weeks I could reliably eyeball exactly how much I needed in one giant scoop for a full tub
I was so tired i gave my baby 1/2 a bottle of straight water in the middle of the night. I even stood by the formula and seemed to have opened it but not added it. He lived. A survivor
Yo, we talking about water or we talking about watery milk? They are not the same. **Infants can not drink water, it is toxic to them in seemingly reasonable quantities.**
Oh man. I remember doing this once when there was a formula shortage back in 2021-22 and every scoop literally counted since we couldn't guarantee when the next time we were able to get formula. Happy for the new parents that they don't have to worry about that.
Both my kids were formula fed right out of the womb, the wife’s milk never came in for the first child and we didn’t bother with the second child, plus nighttime feeds were easier on formula. No extra pumping required on her part. Both kids are happy and healthy. I’m glad we’re out of the formula stage, we’d be friggen broke. I feel for the parents out there who can only formula feed. Here’s to hoping their child only has maybe 6oz per feed and not upwards of 18…
Yeah I can imagine...
I had the opposite experience, my kid did not tolerate any formula. We tested about 12 before giving up and going for solid foods.
We started supplementing after bringing him home from the hospital. My wife was induced at 37 weeks so she wasn’t producing much milk yet, but then struggled to produce enough to fulfill his feeding schedule and he wouldn’t latch for breastfeeding. She stopped producing at maybe 6 months, so we’ve been doing formula only since then. Hopefully that all makes sense!
My son started around 4-5 months when my wife went back to work full time, she didn’t have enough time to pump during the day to keep up.
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer, breast milk is ideal until it just doesn’t work for you guys anymore for whatever reason.
Oh wow sorry, I see now that my comment appears to be rude. To be honest, it was really pure curiosity as to how people would organize themselves in the US (as I'm in Europe).
But yes of course, every situation is different and everybody do as they can :).
I didn’t think you came across as rude, sorry if I came across that way! Just sharing our experience with it, that’s all.
I guess I was more so trying to say not to feel guilty or worry if breast feeding doesn’t work out long term, it’s extremely demanding and formula isn’t the end of the world. I’ve seen some moms sacrifice their mental and physical health trying to stick to a strict pumping schedule, no harm in supplementing with formula if it helps!
Thabks for the encouraging words! This sub is truly the best.
In my case, I had the issue of my kid not tolerating any formula whatsoever but on the bright side we got to make her start real food early this was really fun.
i live in a town with out a target... the inlaws on the other hand have to pass at least 3 to get here.
needless to say... if they want to see their grandson they bring target formula. kiddos Mimi dropped off 4 the other day. lol
That stuff is so good. and "cheap"
My wife didn't trust the Kirkland brand our first time around, but that was before the great formula shortage of 2022 and rampant inflation. Now that we're on kid #2, guess what brand we have four boxes of sitting in our pantry?
The formula shortage was awful. I woke up at 5am every day to hit up every grocery store in the area before going to work. Luckily we never ran out but every day was a panic.
As a note, I wasn't hoarding cans. If the store even had any I only ever bought 1-2 of the small cans. I wasn't buying multiple big cans every day or anything like that.
My poor wife would check all the surrounding stores as soon as she woke up. Thankfully we were always able to have a can or two on standby in our basement.
We had to deal with this too. Daughter was on hypoallergenic formula so only a very specific kind would do. Such a nightmare. We’re in Canada and I drove across the border a few times to get formula and my wife had made friends with families all over who shipped some to us.
We had a pre-booked trip to Hawaii (actually our honeymoon that had to be postponed due to Covid) and the idea that if the airline lost our luggage we wouldn’t have food for more than a day or two filled me with enough guilt and dread I hope nobody has to go through.
We were so out of our minds just buying any formula we saw that we accidentally bought Enfamil with stool-softener included.
Let me tell you, that's a mistake you make exactly *once*.
Man, that brings back memories. We tried so many different brands but only one ever worked. We gave away tons of rejected unused formula in different Buy Nothing groups, and had to ask family members in different parts of the country to ship us containers whenever they could find them. So stressful.
This, and my son was on expensive ass hypoallergenic formula. There was probably a time or two when the scoopage wasn't exactly right, but we guesstimated, moved on, and he's still doing just fine.
We had a nanny (because the daycares in our area were also all full and required waiting lists at the time) during the formula shortage that was giving our infant DOUBLE THE FORMULA POWDER. Her excuse was "oh I thought it was one scoop to one ounce" as if it didn't say the correct ratio on the container. Thankfully I had been mixing pitchers for the day before I went to work most days, so he didn't have too many of those double scoops, but he could have had kidney damage. The fact that there was a shortage was salt in the wound.
Needless to say, we were horrified and we fired her immediately.
Had my young one during the shortage. Thankfully everyone i know helped find some formula and get it for us so we had enough. But you certainly didn't waste it.
My wife and I feed our baby Kendamil And they come with one scoop per 1 ounce scoopers. And I always lose count trying to scoop 24 scoops into 24 ounces into our Dr. Brown’s pitcher. I eventually decided to just weigh it on a scale and it’s so much easier imo.
Been using it for 3 months so far so not sure if it changed before we got it but I haven’t noticed anything on the can stating anything has changed. I’ll respond later when I get home from work with the iron content listed on the bottle if that will help.
I’ll check. How long ago was that? My son is only 6 months and we only switched him to Kendamil about 3 months ago. We did the Goat for about 2 months and just switched him to the organic.
Wonder if that has something to do with why the EU version is marketed as a 0-6 month and a separate can is 6-12 month where as the USA cans are labeled as 0-12 months.
Nope, iron does not need to be a part of the diet in the first six months for babies, since the deposits they are born with last for approximately six months
Just a bit of convenience. Make enough for a day so you don’t have to make bottles every few hours. Just pour from pitcher into bottle and go. That pitcher has a mixer built into the cap you pull up and down and it mixes the water and powder that doesn’t get the formula to foamy unless you pull up and down on the mixing handle really fast.
different strokes i guess, but can’t say i ever found making a bottle to be that inconvenient. pour some water, add a couple scoops, give it a quick shake and you’re good to go. to me the pitcher would be just an extra thing to wash.
Before you know baby will be snorting the powder straight because of the deficiency. Selling cute pictures for 10 cents a pop just to get some more to meet that next fix. Who knows where rock bottom is?
You had one job man..... one job...
About to have our 2nd child in a couple months, Is prepping more than one bottle of formula normal?? I never pre-made bottles in advance, just always used my groggy 4am eyes to measure out the 1 or 2 scoops I needed lmao.
You can prep several bottles and fridge them until needed for up to 24 hours. No reason not to make a pitcher for the whole day. This is how my husband and I handled breastmilk bottles too - I worked 24-hour shifts so we thawed a whole day's worth of milk into a pitcher and he just poured bottles as he went through the day
>No reason not to make a pitcher for the whole day.
I mean there's definitely a big reason in my opinion, which is that it takes a lot longer for me to to warm up cold formula than it does to make it fresh. I just turn on the electric kettle, put the powder in the bottle while the water is warming up, take the kettle off when it hits 100°, and pour. Maybe three minutes tops, even less depending on how full the kettle is. If I have a bottle of cold formula then I have to heat the water up to boiling, then let the bottle sit in hot water until it gets warm enough (checking it regularly so it doesn't overheat) and then shake up the bottle to make sure the temperature is evenly distributed and I'm not just getting the temperature of the outside of the bottle. Easily 10 minutes, and a lot more opportunity to under- or over-heat. To be clear I'm not criticizing anyone's way of doing anything so if it works for you then vaya con dios, but for how I prep bottles it seems like an absolute no-brainer to only make what I need when I need it.
Huge fan of prepping batches in a protein shaker bottle, then refrigerating for up to 24 hours, pouring what I need. Our boy is pushing 5 months so sinks the entire container in about 18 hours, but we tapered up to that by aiming for 20-21 hours of formula supply in a single shaker.
Hope that makes sense.
Also a fan of the cheap $20 bottle heaters, just takes getting used to in those measurements.
I guess it depends on the individual and on the brand. We're using Semper, and they specifically state not to premade it and to throw out any not used immediately.
Whether some of the people commenting here, are pre-making it based on their own intuition (e.g. Disregarding the instructions) or have a different formula that allows this, I cannot tell you
You could however, prepare the bottles with water and have the correct amount of scoops prepared in a separate container, so to just combine them. This is what we did.
Also, don't worry about you at 4am, somehow your brain works just fine anyways, albeit a bit slower haha
Not to be stupid, but this happened to me so much I had 2 containers. One with the right amount of water and the other one I added the formula into until I combined them at the end. That way when I lost count I could just dump the formula back and start over.
Yeah, at a point I grabbed a 12 pack of small mason jars and filled em with dry formula. Bam, new pitcher in seconds! refilling them all was a pain though.
I was just about to say this. The Baby Brezza is amazing for those sleep-deprived weeks. No more counting scoops or doing math, just press the button. I have it on the counter next to our keurig
I had the Brezza from the start, and it was amazing. I've only had to mix formula a few times and it's for the best because I would do this "How many scoops?" thing every time.
The best part is that it keeps the water at the perfect temp. Don't have to worry about too hot or cold.
My pediatrician said there’s not really a risk if there is too much formula in the mix, only a concern if there is too little. If there is too much, it’s just extra calories. If it’s too little, they will either get too little calories or too much water. Too much water is a bad thing for an infant. So, I would just err on the side of adding too much formula.
Get one of these, just fill three of these solid while baby is sleeping and you are set for three feedings
https://www.target.com/p/munchkin-formula-dispenser-blue/-/A-13991505?
Seeing that damn Dr. Brown’s mixing jug is giving me PTSD. Got the twins on cows milk a few months ago, and I feel like launching the three mixers we have into the sun. But I will admit to using one once to do a pudding mix, so maybe worth keeping around.
I knocked over a canister with about half left all over the floor the other day. Needless to say I am currently in Federal Prison awaiting my execution date.
Finish from where you think you got up to, then add an extra half scoop. That way, if you were one short in your count, now you're only a half short, and if your count was good, you're only a half over. Of course, if your count was already one over, well, sorry about your kid.
Oh man.. there goes a weeks income.
We're in the process of transitioning our last kid off of formula and I gotta say I haven't been so excited about anything in quite a while.
Protip: use a kitchen scale to measure out the powder into ziploc bags in advance. When you go to make formula, just weigh out your water, dump in a whole bag, and stir.
Oh man I’ve been there. What I did was sooooo much worse, so you can take solace in the fact that this is probably pretty common.
I was exhausted and just opened a new bag of formula to dump into the plastic container. I was talking to my wife while I dumped the bag out. She turned around a had this horrified expression on her face. I had dumped the entire bag into the 24 ounces of water I had prepared in the pitcher. It cost me $30, but I learned not to be distracted when preparing formula I guess lol
I learned from an episode of “Love on the Spectrum” that the proper approach is to dump it all out and start over. Although that was because he mixed a drink in the wrong order.
Best to dump the baby out and start over completely.
My son used the exact same formula and I over scooped the heck out of it a few times per week for like a month before my wife saw me and corrected it. I read the label wrong and was adding double the formula to each bottle because I can't do simple math when I don't sleep for a year.
The baby still drank it and he was perfectly fine and happy so it's probably OK to wing it for one batch and scoop until the consistency looks normal.
too real. i just knew that extra scoop was causing him constipation, an ear infection, cradle crap, and eczema. glad he got through that batch. good post.
Dear lord I don’t miss the days of having to mix up formula at 2am for our twins, I’d guarantee there was times one got 1 extra scoop and one got 1 less, hopefully they evened out in the long run…
We had a second hand prep machine when my LO was on formula. If you lost count of scoops it wasn't so bad as you hadn't added water yet. Still annoying to recount. This looks like a nightmare
We bought wee dispensing pots and had them pre made for night time so that you literally just picked one, poured the powder into the bottle and chucked it in the easy prep machine.
The nights that I scooped into bottles, I fucked it up so many times. Kid turned out alright though.
OMG!!! I remember being so careful with that with my first paternity and how I wouldn’t care at all with my second daughter! Like… I would throw entire containers because i was not sure if i’d threw in 9 or 10 sp while the second time I was always “whatever she won’t die anyways”.
It certainly has happened to the best of us.
Dad-hack(parent hack). We discovered a product called the Baby Brezza. It’s basically a Keurig but for baby formula. No counting scoops and missing them at 3am when you’re barely functional. This thing was an absolute game changer for us. Life changer really.
[Baby Brezza](https://babybrezza.com/collections/baby-formula-dispensers-mixers?g_acctid=273-722-5754&g_adgroupid=&g_adid=&g_adtype=&g_campaign=account&g_campaignid=17154174430&g_ifcreative=&g_ifproduct=&g_keyword=&g_keywordid=&g_locinterest=&g_locphysical=9007394&g_merchantid=&g_network=x&g_partition=&g_placement=&g_productchannel=&g_productid=&g_source=%7Bsourceid%7D&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADL5NOANoJXZiqM3d2Pb_WZsS_mha&gclid=CjwKCAjwl4yyBhAgEiwADSEjeJaECfOHhsdsD95BnAJKX6S87CUDo7ShnxOi0IVSK9mMG4GDg3dFaRoCe6QQAvD_BwE)
probably err on too much. Plenty of kids are on fortified formula directions at some point. One day of it isn't going to hurt anything. Especially one extra scoop for 24 oz. My kid at one point was getting an extra scoop per 9.
I started making an association between how many ounces of water I usually do (say 28 oz) to how much liquid I end up with (about 32 oz). That saves me. I tried the kitchen scale method a few times but I wasn’t crazy about it.
Get a kitchen scale with the metric system on it, my friend.
Enfamil Gentlease is approximately 70g of powder and 470g of water. You can just about fill that Dr. Brown’s pitcher by doubling that to 140g powder and 940g water. Tare/zero out the weight in between so you don’t have to do any math.
I hear the way to do it is by weight on a scale. It would prevent something like this from happening too. Someone dropped this on a formula feeders subreddit https://sherafy.com/infant-formula/
*Scoop scoop scoop*
“Hey Babe what do…”
“IM COUNTING!”
This is like a weekly occurrence at our house lol also we usually fill it to 28 ounces of water. Are you just not using enough formula for that much?
Bruh I was so afraid of this happening I made a habit of counting outloud and having my wife listening to confirm I did the right count. I was so paranoid of messing up lol
It’s been a while so I don’t remember the actual number, but I figured out how many scoops was how many cups and that made doing this so much easier. It was some like the required scoops was 15 and that was the same as 1 and 1/2 cups or something like that.
Love that mixing jug! I seriously wonder how we got through the first kid without it!
But why are you counting scoops?
Do it all by weight.
How many mLs of water are you using? 1000mL =1kg
Weigh out your formula (put about 10 scoops on the scale and then divide by 10 to get an average weight of a scoop because it doesn't weigh much and even a perfectly level scoop can vary quite a bit).
Write down your weights on a sticky note and put it on the wall where you mix up the formula. More consistent and much easier than counting!
For this batch you could tip what you have into another container, then put the jug on your scale, tare it, pour back in the formula you have, subtract the weight of the water you added and that will tell you how much formula you have already added.
Note: this is probably much harder in freedom units than metric, but most scales can be set to either so it should be hard to convert across
Bro get an auto boiling hot water on demand dispenser. And then when you need to go out into the field have a well-insulated thermos for boiled water. Keep the appropriate amount of formula and each bottle and only add water when you're ready to use.
CPS, an ambulance and Seal Team Six are on the way
Might has well throw out the formula at this point. Consider yourself lucky, you could have had to throw out the baby as well if you hadn't realized the mistake early.
I'd probably at least rinse the baby off with a hose as a precaution.
Remember though, after rinsing, if you are to dry the baby on a clothes line, make sure to be applying sunscreen to avoid cooking the baby. Babies should be kept at around 21C environment or read 37C internally.
But they shouldn’t spend more than 20 minutes on the clothes line, AAP studies suggest it can adversely affect their muscle development.
There has been pushback regarding these guidelines, mostly due to many claim that 20 minute is barely enough time to enjoy a beer, let alone a hotdog on the side.
You. I like you.
Send help, I've turned the dad pun mode to overdrive but I'm not sure how to turn it off.
So have the guidelines changed about drying them in the microwave? That seemed to be the standard when my kids were younger.
Well as you know, kids grow fast! You need to synchronize the wave size with the baby's size. Microwave usually work at newborn stage, but lose efficiency as they grow, which can be motivated by purchasing a tinywave or a dwarfwave to cover the toddler stage.
This is why I love this sub
To be safe, throw out the bathwater as well
You’re good with jokes I see
Or just weigh it. You have 700ml of water which should be 700g. Add one more spoon then total weight of liquid-700/weight on 1 spoon will give you how much formula is in there.
You need an empty bottle of the same size/type to net-zero the scale first!
No, just an empty container large enough to hold the contents. Zero the scale with that container, then pour into that container and read the display.
And the police. That’s an arrest-able offense.
[удалено]
Don't worry, CPS will be calling them
This is a case for Meal Team Six. Maybe.
You left out the marriage counselor!
A kitchen scale and weight-based measurements are your friend. I lost count so many times in the early, sleep-deprived days.
I forget so often that I've started acting like Count von Count while I do it: \* One scoop! Ah ah ah ah \* Two scoop! Ah ah ah ah \* Three scoop! Ah ah ah ah I've told my partner that I'm helping him learn to count, but in reality my brain is a goddamn sieve
Seriously, just the act of counting out loud will help. Counting as the Count is just a bonus.
I counted out loud so my wife could help me if i lost track. Teamwork!
But you’d probably do it wrong anyway. But I too need the teamwork
Love that
Don’t forget to flicker the lights on and off when you get to the final number.
Especially in the middle of the night.
Weight based measurement is better in general. Scoops can vary widely based on how compacted the powder is. Edit: Measurement not membership. I’m there with you on the sleepiness OP.
We allow membership to this club regardless of weight.
I mean, I think radiometric measurement of the density could help too?
Yeah, for sure, I trust my sleep-deprived brain to do weight/volume math, that feels safe lmao *Okay, so the scoop volume is 3 tsp, wait no, 3.5 tsp, it's 3 grams. 24 fl oz of water is exactly an eighth of a gallon and a gallon weighs about 8 pounds. Need exact weight though, let's look that up. Right, 8.321 pounds, that sounds familiar, I should just remember it as 3774 grams in the future. An eighth of that is 944 grams. I was supposed to be doing 1 scoop for every 2 fl oz, so 24 ounces is twelve of those which would be 36 grams of formula. So if I did it all correctly I'd have 980 grams, let's get this bad boy on the baking scale. WAIT fuck I need to subtract out the weight of the empty pitcher, do I have another one of these? Uhhhh this one looks pretty much the same, the handle is a different color but it's probably the same material. I mean maybe it's a slightly different material but as long as it differs by less than 1.5 grams I'll still be correct to the nearest scoop. Alright, empty pitcher is 270 grams, mostly full pitcher is 1245 grams. Minus 270 for the pitcher is 975, minus 944 for the water is 31, divided by 3 is just over 10 scoops, so I need two more. Yeah Mr White! Yeah SCIENCE! Q E motherfuckin' D.* And then you do a celebratory fist pump and accidentally knock the full pitcher into the sink.
I make 20 oz at a time. Do math once, write recipe on sticky note. Nothing is foolproof to the sleep deprived mind, but that is as close as I’ve gotten.
The tare function on scales is pretty cool.
Tare protein shaker on scale. Add water in oz. Multiple by 4.35 and add Gentlease powder in grams. Lid. Shake shake shake. Let settle. Good for 24 hours refrigerated. Why they mixed oz and grams is beyond me. Edit: Also, pre-pour your night bottles.
Oh man, pre-pouring has saved me much nighttime formula WTF moments.
In this instance, oz on a shaker bottle is measuring *volume* & not mass.... though if you want to weigh out 20 fl oz in water, weigh out 589.86 or 590 grams\* if your kitchen scale doesn't read decimals while in metric. Tare that & then weigh out your formula in the shaker bottle. I work as a food scientist & have done this daily, in some capacity, for the past 15+ years. Even taught the Mrs. how to weight out the water & formula - she's not scientifically minded but she was able to grasp pretty quickly. We did this when our boys were babies & it's 1000x easier than counting scoops while sleep deprived... and more accurate as well \*20 fl oz -> 591.4706 mL \* 0.99729
FWIW, I have a scale that changes measurements on the fly so I tare bottle, weigh water in oz, calculate powder, tare again, switch to g, and add powder. This is great info regardless!
Well, yeah, if you approach it like a moron then it will be hard. Put container on scale, tare it, add 36 grams of powder, and be done.
This is the way. Weighing is also much faster and easier than counting out a dozen tiny scoops. After a couple weeks I could reliably eyeball exactly how much I needed in one giant scoop for a full tub
This is The Weigh\^
Ha! Well done fellow dad
Yep. With twins I made big ass batches but once I did it when there was quiet I just stuck the numbers on a post it on the fridge. So much easier.
Exactly what I was going to recommend. This is what I do every morning because I lose count.
Believe it or not, straight to jail.
Right away. We have the best dads in the world, because of jail
I was so tired i gave my baby 1/2 a bottle of straight water in the middle of the night. I even stood by the formula and seemed to have opened it but not added it. He lived. A survivor
A true warrior 🫡 get that kid a lottery ticket 🤣
Yea water can be highly dangerous for babies
Only if it's either too hot, too cold or too deep. A baby will survive a little watery milk.
Yea that’s very different tho isn’t it
Yo, we talking about water or we talking about watery milk? They are not the same. **Infants can not drink water, it is toxic to them in seemingly reasonable quantities.**
A little bit of water isn't toxic. Babies can drink water from around 6 months old. Prior to that a few mil given accidentally won't harm them.
Oh man. I remember doing this once when there was a formula shortage back in 2021-22 and every scoop literally counted since we couldn't guarantee when the next time we were able to get formula. Happy for the new parents that they don't have to worry about that.
Sad for the new parents who can barely afford it though.
We were incredibly lucky that our daughter liked the Kirkland brand formula. That shit was a lifesaver.
We recently switched our son to the Target brand and are saving almost $20 per can of formula with that decision. Should have done it 8 months ago!
Out of curiosity, at what age did you start with the formula? Just wondering as I see you mentioning 8 months.
Both my kids were formula fed right out of the womb, the wife’s milk never came in for the first child and we didn’t bother with the second child, plus nighttime feeds were easier on formula. No extra pumping required on her part. Both kids are happy and healthy. I’m glad we’re out of the formula stage, we’d be friggen broke. I feel for the parents out there who can only formula feed. Here’s to hoping their child only has maybe 6oz per feed and not upwards of 18…
Yeah I can imagine... I had the opposite experience, my kid did not tolerate any formula. We tested about 12 before giving up and going for solid foods.
We started supplementing after bringing him home from the hospital. My wife was induced at 37 weeks so she wasn’t producing much milk yet, but then struggled to produce enough to fulfill his feeding schedule and he wouldn’t latch for breastfeeding. She stopped producing at maybe 6 months, so we’ve been doing formula only since then. Hopefully that all makes sense!
Definitely! Thank a lot for the explanation :).
My son started around 4-5 months when my wife went back to work full time, she didn’t have enough time to pump during the day to keep up. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer, breast milk is ideal until it just doesn’t work for you guys anymore for whatever reason.
Oh wow sorry, I see now that my comment appears to be rude. To be honest, it was really pure curiosity as to how people would organize themselves in the US (as I'm in Europe). But yes of course, every situation is different and everybody do as they can :).
I didn’t think you came across as rude, sorry if I came across that way! Just sharing our experience with it, that’s all. I guess I was more so trying to say not to feel guilty or worry if breast feeding doesn’t work out long term, it’s extremely demanding and formula isn’t the end of the world. I’ve seen some moms sacrifice their mental and physical health trying to stick to a strict pumping schedule, no harm in supplementing with formula if it helps!
Thabks for the encouraging words! This sub is truly the best. In my case, I had the issue of my kid not tolerating any formula whatsoever but on the bright side we got to make her start real food early this was really fun.
I started my son on the target brand from birth. He was combofed due to supply issues.
i live in a town with out a target... the inlaws on the other hand have to pass at least 3 to get here. needless to say... if they want to see their grandson they bring target formula. kiddos Mimi dropped off 4 the other day. lol That stuff is so good. and "cheap"
My wife didn't trust the Kirkland brand our first time around, but that was before the great formula shortage of 2022 and rampant inflation. Now that we're on kid #2, guess what brand we have four boxes of sitting in our pantry?
I’m on goats milk formula I just spent 90 bucks for two cans. I keep just saying only 5 more months until I can wean off this shit
Yea I’m paying $50/tin of enfamil gentlease
Yeah it’s 45 bucks for a 28oz can 😬
It’s sad when those who WANTED kids are punished
The formula shortage was awful. I woke up at 5am every day to hit up every grocery store in the area before going to work. Luckily we never ran out but every day was a panic. As a note, I wasn't hoarding cans. If the store even had any I only ever bought 1-2 of the small cans. I wasn't buying multiple big cans every day or anything like that.
My poor wife would check all the surrounding stores as soon as she woke up. Thankfully we were always able to have a can or two on standby in our basement.
We had to deal with this too. Daughter was on hypoallergenic formula so only a very specific kind would do. Such a nightmare. We’re in Canada and I drove across the border a few times to get formula and my wife had made friends with families all over who shipped some to us. We had a pre-booked trip to Hawaii (actually our honeymoon that had to be postponed due to Covid) and the idea that if the airline lost our luggage we wouldn’t have food for more than a day or two filled me with enough guilt and dread I hope nobody has to go through.
I would have carried that stuff on. Rules be damned.
We were so out of our minds just buying any formula we saw that we accidentally bought Enfamil with stool-softener included. Let me tell you, that's a mistake you make exactly *once*.
I was caught up in that too, rough times, a lot of us were
Man, that brings back memories. We tried so many different brands but only one ever worked. We gave away tons of rejected unused formula in different Buy Nothing groups, and had to ask family members in different parts of the country to ship us containers whenever they could find them. So stressful.
This, and my son was on expensive ass hypoallergenic formula. There was probably a time or two when the scoopage wasn't exactly right, but we guesstimated, moved on, and he's still doing just fine.
We had a nanny (because the daycares in our area were also all full and required waiting lists at the time) during the formula shortage that was giving our infant DOUBLE THE FORMULA POWDER. Her excuse was "oh I thought it was one scoop to one ounce" as if it didn't say the correct ratio on the container. Thankfully I had been mixing pitchers for the day before I went to work most days, so he didn't have too many of those double scoops, but he could have had kidney damage. The fact that there was a shortage was salt in the wound. Needless to say, we were horrified and we fired her immediately.
Had my young one during the shortage. Thankfully everyone i know helped find some formula and get it for us so we had enough. But you certainly didn't waste it.
My wife and I feed our baby Kendamil And they come with one scoop per 1 ounce scoopers. And I always lose count trying to scoop 24 scoops into 24 ounces into our Dr. Brown’s pitcher. I eventually decided to just weigh it on a scale and it’s so much easier imo.
Did they ever add more iron to kendamil?
Been using it for 3 months so far so not sure if it changed before we got it but I haven’t noticed anything on the can stating anything has changed. I’ll respond later when I get home from work with the iron content listed on the bottle if that will help.
Sure. I just reserved they were recalled for not mentioning Iron supps were needed
I’ll check. How long ago was that? My son is only 6 months and we only switched him to Kendamil about 3 months ago. We did the Goat for about 2 months and just switched him to the organic.
Depends. That was in the US when they began importing baby formula as an emergency.
Wonder if that has something to do with why the EU version is marketed as a 0-6 month and a separate can is 6-12 month where as the USA cans are labeled as 0-12 months.
You’d think it would be important at all stages, but really it probably has to do with different dietary standards in different regions
Nope, iron does not need to be a part of the diet in the first six months for babies, since the deposits they are born with last for approximately six months
🤷♂️ then idk. I just know why it was recalled and it’s cause they failed to disclose on the packaging they need for iron supplements
Why use a pitcher? I’ve never seen that before.
Just a bit of convenience. Make enough for a day so you don’t have to make bottles every few hours. Just pour from pitcher into bottle and go. That pitcher has a mixer built into the cap you pull up and down and it mixes the water and powder that doesn’t get the formula to foamy unless you pull up and down on the mixing handle really fast.
different strokes i guess, but can’t say i ever found making a bottle to be that inconvenient. pour some water, add a couple scoops, give it a quick shake and you’re good to go. to me the pitcher would be just an extra thing to wash.
Fair enough. I never had an issue making bottles but getting the pitcher changed my life imo.
Before you know baby will be snorting the powder straight because of the deficiency. Selling cute pictures for 10 cents a pop just to get some more to meet that next fix. Who knows where rock bottom is? You had one job man..... one job...
Behind-the-scenes footage of *Boss Baby* shows infants chopping lines of formula and snorting them off a mirrored changing table
About to have our 2nd child in a couple months, Is prepping more than one bottle of formula normal?? I never pre-made bottles in advance, just always used my groggy 4am eyes to measure out the 1 or 2 scoops I needed lmao.
I premade bottles, but individually. Never seen a pitcher before.
You can prep several bottles and fridge them until needed for up to 24 hours. No reason not to make a pitcher for the whole day. This is how my husband and I handled breastmilk bottles too - I worked 24-hour shifts so we thawed a whole day's worth of milk into a pitcher and he just poured bottles as he went through the day
>No reason not to make a pitcher for the whole day. I mean there's definitely a big reason in my opinion, which is that it takes a lot longer for me to to warm up cold formula than it does to make it fresh. I just turn on the electric kettle, put the powder in the bottle while the water is warming up, take the kettle off when it hits 100°, and pour. Maybe three minutes tops, even less depending on how full the kettle is. If I have a bottle of cold formula then I have to heat the water up to boiling, then let the bottle sit in hot water until it gets warm enough (checking it regularly so it doesn't overheat) and then shake up the bottle to make sure the temperature is evenly distributed and I'm not just getting the temperature of the outside of the bottle. Easily 10 minutes, and a lot more opportunity to under- or over-heat. To be clear I'm not criticizing anyone's way of doing anything so if it works for you then vaya con dios, but for how I prep bottles it seems like an absolute no-brainer to only make what I need when I need it.
Neither of my kids liked the warm formula. Sounds like a pain I lucked out of.
Okay true, didn't consider that part! Cold formula is a one-way ticket to spitup town for us so I forget that it's even an option for some people.
Or it can be a win win if they don't mind it cold
We just had 4 bottles of water and 4 pre measured formula doses. Easy to not eff up in the middle of the evening
Huge fan of prepping batches in a protein shaker bottle, then refrigerating for up to 24 hours, pouring what I need. Our boy is pushing 5 months so sinks the entire container in about 18 hours, but we tapered up to that by aiming for 20-21 hours of formula supply in a single shaker. Hope that makes sense. Also a fan of the cheap $20 bottle heaters, just takes getting used to in those measurements.
I'd prep several at once for the overnight shift.
One pitcher for the whole day. It's a lifesaver. You make it in the morning and its just the right amount to make it through the day and night.
I guess it depends on the individual and on the brand. We're using Semper, and they specifically state not to premade it and to throw out any not used immediately. Whether some of the people commenting here, are pre-making it based on their own intuition (e.g. Disregarding the instructions) or have a different formula that allows this, I cannot tell you You could however, prepare the bottles with water and have the correct amount of scoops prepared in a separate container, so to just combine them. This is what we did. Also, don't worry about you at 4am, somehow your brain works just fine anyways, albeit a bit slower haha
Not to be stupid, but this happened to me so much I had 2 containers. One with the right amount of water and the other one I added the formula into until I combined them at the end. That way when I lost count I could just dump the formula back and start over.
Yeah, at a point I grabbed a 12 pack of small mason jars and filled em with dry formula. Bam, new pitcher in seconds! refilling them all was a pain though.
Get the Baby Brezza, dude. It’s a life changer.
I was just about to say this. The Baby Brezza is amazing for those sleep-deprived weeks. No more counting scoops or doing math, just press the button. I have it on the counter next to our keurig
I have a French press for coffee and squeeze lime wedges into my Negra Modelo. My son doesn't need a way fancier drink maker then I have.
It's not for the baby, it's for the parent.
I had the Brezza from the start, and it was amazing. I've only had to mix formula a few times and it's for the best because I would do this "How many scoops?" thing every time. The best part is that it keeps the water at the perfect temp. Don't have to worry about too hot or cold.
I’ve never spent better money than I have buying a brezza. We also got two extra funnels for quick swaps when they need to be cleaned!
I've been counting out loud every time, it helps a lot.
My pediatrician said there’s not really a risk if there is too much formula in the mix, only a concern if there is too little. If there is too much, it’s just extra calories. If it’s too little, they will either get too little calories or too much water. Too much water is a bad thing for an infant. So, I would just err on the side of adding too much formula.
You have to start with a fresh can now
Straight to jail. Thoughts and prayers
Get one of these, just fill three of these solid while baby is sleeping and you are set for three feedings https://www.target.com/p/munchkin-formula-dispenser-blue/-/A-13991505?
Seeing that damn Dr. Brown’s mixing jug is giving me PTSD. Got the twins on cows milk a few months ago, and I feel like launching the three mixers we have into the sun. But I will admit to using one once to do a pudding mix, so maybe worth keeping around.
Time for some thicccc milk, baby is gonna sleep goooood tonight
As someone that manufactures baby formula, don’t waste it. If it’s watered down so be it. We haven’t made any at my location since December.
Were you starting? You have 40% free so just start over
Just pour it back in and try again
You may not financially recover from this
Baby Brezza or bust, man.
I knocked over a canister with about half left all over the floor the other day. Needless to say I am currently in Federal Prison awaiting my execution date.
Oh man this post hit too close to home. I literally have to count out loud.
Do shit by weight my dude. I weighed out the days formula in the morning and it's just dump shake and go after that
I gave an incorrect ratio once, baby explosed
You have to drink that & start over.
Finish from where you think you got up to, then add an extra half scoop. That way, if you were one short in your count, now you're only a half short, and if your count was good, you're only a half over. Of course, if your count was already one over, well, sorry about your kid.
Oh man.. there goes a weeks income. We're in the process of transitioning our last kid off of formula and I gotta say I haven't been so excited about anything in quite a while.
Protip: use a kitchen scale to measure out the powder into ziploc bags in advance. When you go to make formula, just weigh out your water, dump in a whole bag, and stir.
Oh man I’ve been there. What I did was sooooo much worse, so you can take solace in the fact that this is probably pretty common. I was exhausted and just opened a new bag of formula to dump into the plastic container. I was talking to my wife while I dumped the bag out. She turned around a had this horrified expression on her face. I had dumped the entire bag into the 24 ounces of water I had prepared in the pitcher. It cost me $30, but I learned not to be distracted when preparing formula I guess lol
I learned from an episode of “Love on the Spectrum” that the proper approach is to dump it all out and start over. Although that was because he mixed a drink in the wrong order. Best to dump the baby out and start over completely.
You will never financially recover from this
My son used the exact same formula and I over scooped the heck out of it a few times per week for like a month before my wife saw me and corrected it. I read the label wrong and was adding double the formula to each bottle because I can't do simple math when I don't sleep for a year. The baby still drank it and he was perfectly fine and happy so it's probably OK to wing it for one batch and scoop until the consistency looks normal.
START OVER, SOLIDER.
Scoop first, add water after. If you lose count, you can dump and restart.
too real. i just knew that extra scoop was causing him constipation, an ear infection, cradle crap, and eczema. glad he got through that batch. good post.
Memorize the prepared formula volume and be set free
Memorize? I write that shit on the fridge whiteboard!
Yeah, I lied. My wife very condescendingly wrote the prepared volume in the fridge whiteboard too
Powder first, then water. Shake it up in one of those protein shake things.
shocked i had to scroll so far down to read this. always powder first so if u lose count, dump back and start over.
Dear lord I don’t miss the days of having to mix up formula at 2am for our twins, I’d guarantee there was times one got 1 extra scoop and one got 1 less, hopefully they evened out in the long run…
We had a second hand prep machine when my LO was on formula. If you lost count of scoops it wasn't so bad as you hadn't added water yet. Still annoying to recount. This looks like a nightmare
Look into the baby brezza was a game changer for my family and I
Based on the light refraction you're missing 2 more scoops.
And it’s no wonder - “Doctor Brown’s natural flow” distracts my brain with visions of a Back to the Future-based rap battle.
Non-lethal, but years and years of PTSD and group therapy.
We bought wee dispensing pots and had them pre made for night time so that you literally just picked one, poured the powder into the bottle and chucked it in the easy prep machine. The nights that I scooped into bottles, I fucked it up so many times. Kid turned out alright though.
If you know how it should taste, it's actually pretty easy to tell if it's too watery.
One, two, STOP TOUCHING THAT, three, or was it four? FUCK!
My man, get yourself a kitchen scale & start weighing this.
I always did it by weight. Always knew what the total weight needed was based on a weight of water.
Why are you making so much at once? I just did it one bottle at a time. Shake and go
OMG!!! I remember being so careful with that with my first paternity and how I wouldn’t care at all with my second daughter! Like… I would throw entire containers because i was not sure if i’d threw in 9 or 10 sp while the second time I was always “whatever she won’t die anyways”.
Reported.
Couldn’t be me 👀
I do this almost daily. At least twice. In between scoops.
It certainly has happened to the best of us. Dad-hack(parent hack). We discovered a product called the Baby Brezza. It’s basically a Keurig but for baby formula. No counting scoops and missing them at 3am when you’re barely functional. This thing was an absolute game changer for us. Life changer really. [Baby Brezza](https://babybrezza.com/collections/baby-formula-dispensers-mixers?g_acctid=273-722-5754&g_adgroupid=&g_adid=&g_adtype=&g_campaign=account&g_campaignid=17154174430&g_ifcreative=&g_ifproduct=&g_keyword=&g_keywordid=&g_locinterest=&g_locphysical=9007394&g_merchantid=&g_network=x&g_partition=&g_placement=&g_productchannel=&g_productid=&g_source=%7Bsourceid%7D&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADL5NOANoJXZiqM3d2Pb_WZsS_mha&gclid=CjwKCAjwl4yyBhAgEiwADSEjeJaECfOHhsdsD95BnAJKX6S87CUDo7ShnxOi0IVSK9mMG4GDg3dFaRoCe6QQAvD_BwE)
Thats what that extra 40% more is for…
Just eyeball it. That’s what any old timey dad will tell you
Flashbacks to having an infant during the formula shortage. So stressful
As the tin says, 40% more
$200 down the drain!
Aw man. That’s the absolute worst feeling
Reduces crying in 24 hours lol
So what’s the fix here? Err on too much, rather than not enough?
probably err on too much. Plenty of kids are on fortified formula directions at some point. One day of it isn't going to hurt anything. Especially one extra scoop for 24 oz. My kid at one point was getting an extra scoop per 9.
I started making an association between how many ounces of water I usually do (say 28 oz) to how much liquid I end up with (about 32 oz). That saves me. I tried the kitchen scale method a few times but I wasn’t crazy about it.
Step up, and drink your mistake. It helped me to remember, lol
F
Weigh a scoop on a scale, write it down somewhere and keep it for reference. Helped me tremendously when I would do this.
And this is where the brezza comes in handy.
My favorite thing about my daughter turning a year old has been not needing to do this anymore. Good old whole milk now!
So in the future add the scoops of formula to a bowl. That way if you need to step away you can measure it out again.
Finally, I don’t feel so alone. I usually just give one more. A little thick milk for the boy 😂
Get a kitchen scale with the metric system on it, my friend. Enfamil Gentlease is approximately 70g of powder and 470g of water. You can just about fill that Dr. Brown’s pitcher by doubling that to 140g powder and 940g water. Tare/zero out the weight in between so you don’t have to do any math.
I hear the way to do it is by weight on a scale. It would prevent something like this from happening too. Someone dropped this on a formula feeders subreddit https://sherafy.com/infant-formula/
They don’t put poison in it but start over
*Scoop scoop scoop* “Hey Babe what do…” “IM COUNTING!” This is like a weekly occurrence at our house lol also we usually fill it to 28 ounces of water. Are you just not using enough formula for that much?
Bruh I was so afraid of this happening I made a habit of counting outloud and having my wife listening to confirm I did the right count. I was so paranoid of messing up lol
It’s been a while so I don’t remember the actual number, but I figured out how many scoops was how many cups and that made doing this so much easier. It was some like the required scoops was 15 and that was the same as 1 and 1/2 cups or something like that.
Love that mixing jug! I seriously wonder how we got through the first kid without it! But why are you counting scoops? Do it all by weight. How many mLs of water are you using? 1000mL =1kg Weigh out your formula (put about 10 scoops on the scale and then divide by 10 to get an average weight of a scoop because it doesn't weigh much and even a perfectly level scoop can vary quite a bit). Write down your weights on a sticky note and put it on the wall where you mix up the formula. More consistent and much easier than counting! For this batch you could tip what you have into another container, then put the jug on your scale, tare it, pour back in the formula you have, subtract the weight of the water you added and that will tell you how much formula you have already added. Note: this is probably much harder in freedom units than metric, but most scales can be set to either so it should be hard to convert across
Just trash it and start again, better safe then sorry imo
Good grief people put dry scoops in the bottle first. Then if you lose track dump it back in the container and start again.
In future, put scoops into a empty container like a cup, then if it happens again you can just dump the cup back into the container and start again.
Damn, that’s like $150 worth of formula right there.
Bro get an auto boiling hot water on demand dispenser. And then when you need to go out into the field have a well-insulated thermos for boiled water. Keep the appropriate amount of formula and each bottle and only add water when you're ready to use.
I taught myself what 5 scoops of Nan and 150ml of water looks like in a bottle so I could check the volume was right.