Mixing formula in bulk for the day?

With my daughter, we used Dr browns formula mixing pitcher. But the 2nd time around I am trying to save money and be smarter. lol, with 1 child one of those pitchers would mix enough formula for the day, but with twins it wouldn't so I would need 2 of them. I know that buying those keep air out of the formula as well as prevent clumps but do any of you who already have your twins do it another way? I mean could u just put the formula and water in a big pitcher with a secure lid and shake until mixed or would it clump? And to me if that worked, yes u would get air in it, but since it would sit a couple hrs before u used it wouldn't the air go away? How do ya'll do it? Thanks!

 

I just mixed as I went along honestly. It didn't eat up much time, maybe an extra minute or so. What I did, was I had the water already in bottles pre measured. Then I had the formula pre measured in the formula container(the one with three or four divisions). It was pretty painless and easy.

You'll find a system, after trial and error, that works for you.

 

yes and i'll explain later tonight

 

When we started using bottles for both of them (at 6months), they were on 8oz each feed, we did the same as Meaghan... DH pre-measured all the bottles with boiled water in the morning before he went to work (I splashed out and bought 10 bottles for 5 feeds per day) and then I just poured 2 bottles into the jug at each feed and just measured the formula into the jug. It didn't matter which way I did it, it worked out to be the same amount of time.. and anyway my girls liked their formula at room temperature so pre-mixing was never going to be an option as it would mean heating it up again and that would take more time. My cousin has pre-measured warm boiled water in a thermos so she doesn't need to warm it up - I thought that was a clever idea.

I suppose you could pre-mix in the Dr Brown's jug and then pour into a different pitcher to store until later? I think the only thing I always wondered about pre-measuring was, how would you accurately work out how much they are having because 8oz water with formula makes more than 8oz of formula - I suppose it wouldn't really matter, I just always wondered about that...

 

We mass mixed bottles. So we'd measure and prep all 12 (or however many) bottles of water, add formula, shake, and refrigerate until needed.

 

This is how I preferred to do it because it was easier in the long run. I just had to warm the bottle before the feeding time.

 

I used a stick blender in a big pitcher, made up to 72 oz of formula a day (which my two would drain at the height of their formula feeding). I added half the water, added the formula, blended, then added the rest of the water and blended again. I poured the bottles as I needed them and heated them in the microwave (I know, big no no )

 

We had two big pitchers that we got at BRU that you shook to mix up. We'd make the two big pitchers and then fill bottles for two days at a time. Yes, I know they say one is max. I don't remember how I justified at time but I felt very comfortable doing it. Then we just warmed bottles to room temp in hot tap water.

 

Key ingredient pampered chef hurricane pitcher! It mixes without clumps.

 

Pampered Chef quick stir pitcher. It was the best!!!!

 

I did a big pitcher for awhile but ended up sticking with just making all the bottles either in the morning or the night before. Usually the night before. I found that was the easiest for me.

 

Oh yeah, forgot about this!

We already had an electric tea kettle. We would make double strength formula (i.e. one scoop to one ounce water and this would allow you to keep your mixer without having to buy a second one.)

Kids start getting fussy, turn on tea kettle. Pour however much formula you think they're going to eat, divided by two. So if they're going to eat about 4 ounces, fill the bottle to the 2 oz line with your refrigerated double strength formula, then add the other two ounces of the boiling water. The refrigeration and the heat make a perfectly warm bottle. Since we had reflux issues and had to add in rice cereal from an early age, we would add it on top of the cold, then pour the boiling water on top of it, it helped it dissolve easier with less shaking overall (less bubbles).

 

we did this or at times would use a regular blender or stick blender...pour enough for 24 hours and refrigerate it...I didn't even warm it - mine preferred it cold (it also cut down on the puke)...

 

I did as above and we poured the water in the bottles and just added the right amount of powdered formula to each when we needed it. We had a cupboard of water bottles and just rotated them as we used them.

 

For those of you who used the pampered chef quick stir pitcher, did u used the 2 quart pitcher or the gallon pitcher? The 2 quart had rave reviews, the gallon had horrible reviews which I thought was weird. Which did ya'll use?

 

we had an old 2 qt one...

 

We had the 2 qt pitcher. We wore the original one out and have a new one

 

We would pre-prep all the bottles for the day, however many that was at the time, then just heat them in a bottle warmer. I found that a lot easier than doing each one as we went along since the bottles were already put together, etc., and just had to be warmed a bit.

 

I used the 2 qt. It worked very well for us!!

 

This is what we did as well, except I measured it all in a big pitcher, then mixed, and then poured in our bottles. We did this daily.

 

Yep, this is exactly what I used to mix formula for my twins as well and it worked perfectly. :good: I also used the 2 qt. one.