It’s safest to make up formula when you need it and feed your baby straight away because warm milk is a lovely place for bacteria to grow. However, if you choose to premake formula you can store it in the fridge for up to 24 hours. This means that you can prepare your required number of feeds for a 24 hour period in advance and store it in the fridge ready for warming when you need it. You can also store formula in a cool bag for up to four hours.

Making your formula

Follow the usual gold standard technique as recommended by the NHS.

If making up multiple bottles at a time you could use a jug or formula pitcher, which is a handy contraption with a specialised plunger for ensuring the formula is mixed well (and costs around £15). This lets you make up your formula in the same way as making a bottle but in a larger volume; pour the hot water in first up to the required volume and then add the recommended number of formula scoops.

It’s easy to lose track of the number of scoops when making up larger volumes of formula, plus the scoop can get claggy with formula clumps because of the steam from the hot water. So, a good tip is to decant your scoops into a clean mug and then tip this into the hot water. This means the scoop won’t get claggy but also if you lose count of your scoops you don’t need to ditch the jug of formula (soul destroying if you’ve counted 20 odd ounces), you just tip your formula powder back into the tub and start again.

Once you’ve made the formula, rapidly cool it by placing the bottles or the jug into cold water. Individual bottles will cool quicker than a jug full of formula as the milk is in smaller volumes. To avoid the bottles tipping up, and thus having to be discarded, make sure the cold water level in your basin or sink is very slightly lower than the level of milk in your bottles and be super careful placing them in and taking them out. One bottle brand sells a bottle crate for a few quid that you could put the bottles in before placing them in the sink to avoid tipping!

Storing your formula

Place the cooled bottles or jug into the back of your fridge - not the door - and ensure the temperature is less than 5 degrees C.

Throw away any formula not used up within 24 hours.

If you store your formula in the jug this gives the flexibility to decant and heat different volumes of formula throughout he day and may help reduce waste. However, limit the time the jug is out of the fridge as much as you can; bring a clean, sterile bottle as close to the fridge as possible, decant the milk quickly and put the jug straight back to the back of the fridge asap.

Heating your formula

When your baby is hungry, select a bottle from the fridge or decant the required amount from your jug and ensure the lid is tightly sealed.

Place your bottle in warm water to heat through. You can use a jug of warm water from the tap or a bottle warmer. Using a microwave to heat your bottles is not advised because microwaves heat food stuffs unevenly, creating hot spots. This can result in hot milk not being picked up by the wrist check and your baby being scalded.

As you’re here, you’re obviously feeling naughty! So, if you do decide to break the rules and heat up your bottles in the microwave - remember, this is not recommended - make sure not to put the milk in the microwave for too long and then mix the warmed milk thoroughly by inverting the bottle a good few times to ensure any hot spots are dispersed.

We cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure your bottle is evenly heated and throughly mixed, and the milk has been temperature checked before giving it to your baby.