It's fine to give your baby room temperature or even cold formula. If your baby prefers warm formula, place a filled bottle in a bowl of warm water and let it stand for a few minutes — or warm the bottle under running water.
Is it safe to feed babies cold milk? Yes, it's safe to feed your baby cold milk. In fact, frozen breast milk can be used as a form of pain relief for teething babies!
Scientists have proven that temperature does not affect the nutritional composition of milk, babies can drink cold milk. It's actually not as important as using the right mix of water and formula (bottle-fed babies) and properly storing breast milk (breastfed babies).
If made-up formula is stored: in a fridge – use within 24 hours. in a cool bag with an ice pack – use within 4 hours.
Babies can safely drink cold breastmilk or formula. For healthy, full-term babies, you don't need to be concerned about giving your baby a bottle straight from the refrigerator or mixing formula with cold water.
Baby formula doesn't have to be warm. It's fine to feed your baby cool or even cold formula. It's all up to your baby's preference – they may prefer it warm, at room temperature, or even chilled, and all of those options are just fine.
Baby's milk or infant formula does not need to be warmed before feeding, but some people like to warm their baby's bottle. If you do decide to warm the bottle, never use a microwave. Microwaves heat milk and food unevenly, resulting in “hot spots” that can burn your baby's mouth and throat.
Let the formula settle
Why? The more shaking and blending involved, the more air bubbles get into the mix, which can then be swallowed by your baby and result in gas. Try using warm (but not too hot) water compared to cold or room temperature water.
For a bottle of formula, prepared at 70°C to cool to a safe temperature of approximately 37°C, it will need to sit for at least 30 minutes, possibly longer. This may allow bacteria time to multiply and is contradictory to usual safety advice for any other foods.
“During the daytime, I recommend that you make the bottle roughly before you're going to feed it,” Adler says. “But for overnight feeds, it's convenient to make bottles up before you go to bed and put them in the fridge. They'll stay good for 24 hours, so you can quickly grab one at 3 a.m.”
While there are no nutritional or health advantages to drinking heated formula, some babies do show a preference for drinking it that way. Babies often seem to like what they're used to, so if they have been fed warm bottles previously, then cold or room-temperature formula may be less tolerated.
Powdered infant formula milk is not sterile. Even though tins and packets of milk powder are sealed, they can still contain bacteria. Water that hasn't been boiled can also contain bacteria. Formula therefore needs to be made up with water hot enough to kill the bacteria, which is at least 70 degrees C.
6 Sterilizing water for healthy term infants has historically been recommended until infants are four months of age. By four months infants are commonly putting many non-sterilized objects in their mouths. Therefore four months has been chosen as the age for discontinuing the sterilization of water.
While the ideal temperature for formula or breast milk is at or just below body temperature – 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit – that's more of a guideline. Before you bust out the thermometer, consider the wrist method to test the temperature: just drop a couple dribbles from the bottle onto the inside of your wrist.
Is it safe? Sure. Many babies don't mind a bottle of cold milk. Some moms like to take the chill off by running the bottle under a little hot water (or soaking it) for a couple of minutes, but you technically could go straight from fridge to baby.
Formula powder is not sterile and when made up it provides an ideal medium for bacteria to grow. Using boiled water of at least 70°C to make up the feed will reduce the risk of your baby becoming unwell with infections like sickness or diarrhoea. Any harmful bacteria present will be killed at this temperature.
To reduce the risk of infection, it's best to make up feeds 1 at a time, as your baby needs them. Use freshly boiled drinking water from the tap to make up a feed. Do not use artificially softened water or water that has been boiled before.
Distilled or purified water can be used without boiling it. All other water should be boiled then cooled as described below. This includes all other bottled water and all tap water.
A: Most babies prefer body temperature milk of 98.6ºF or 37ºC. For babies who suffer from colic and digestive issues, a slightly warmer bottle can help.
Warmed milk is easier for baby to digest, as they don't need to use extra energy to warm it up in their tummy. So some parents find that warm milk is less likely to cause baby to have tummy aches.
How Long Can a Bottle Keep at Room Temperature? Throw out any prepared or ready-to-feed formula that's been sitting out for 2 hours or more, or within 1 hour from start of feeding.
The safest way to pre-prepare bottles is to make the bottles in the evening in the normal way, ensuring the powder is added to freshly boiled water. Then immediately cool the milk under running cold water or in a bowl of cold water.
It's fine to give your baby room temperature or even cold formula. If your baby prefers warm formula, place a filled bottle in a bowl of warm water and let it stand for a few minutes — or warm the bottle under running water. Test the temperature by putting a couple of drops on the back of your hand.
Your baby will usually be able to sleep through from 7pm to 7am at around 4 months old, weighing around 15-16lb, and you can drop the feed altogether. Bliss!