Guest Post: How to feed your baby in the car, by Gargi Shastri

So, I am pleased to say that from now on, I'm going to be featuring some shiny guest posts. This is the first of them.

As some of you may recall, I had a big crisis of conscience surrounding the whole breast vs.bottle feeding debate. In accordance, this post does not favour one method over another. 

How to feed your baby in the car

With the right preparation, you can overcome some of the hassles associated with feeding babies on car journeys. Feeding time can be a more relaxed experience if you know how to do it safely and what to bring along. Read on for ways to ensure that your baby is fed safely and comfortably in the car.

Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is considered the most convenient way to feed babies in the car by some mothers. It requires no additional equipment, such as warm bottles and sterilizers, and can be done in relative privacy.

However, the NHS warns against breastfeeding in a moving car because it involves mothers having to take their baby out of the child car seat to breastfeed, which is both unsafe and illegal. Therefore, it is essential to pull over in a designated parking area first.


Expressed milk
According to NHS guidelines, expressed milk can be stored at room temperature for up to six hours in a sterile bottle. However, if the length of your journey means you need to store the milk for a longer period, it might be a better idea to first express the milk at home and immediately refrigerate it. Expressed milk can be stored in the fridge for up to 5 days at 4০C or lower. For the journey, the refrigerated milk can be stored in a handy travel size mini-fridge or cool bag.

Formula
When it comes to formula feeding, it might be easiest to use ready-made sterile liquid feeds, instead of carrying hot water and powdered formula in the car.

If you prefer making the formula at home before your journey, make sure it has cooled for at least one hour in the fridge. Take the feed out of the fridge just before you leave and carry it in a cool bag with an ice pack in the car. The formula should be used within four hours. If you don’t have a cool bag, the formula needs to be used in two hours.

It’s not a must to warm milk before giving it to the baby, but if your baby prefers it that way, both expressed milk and ready-made sterile liquid feeds can be warmed in a travel bottle-warmer, which simply plugs into the car’s cigarette lighter.

Hygiene is a big concern for many parents when bottle-feeding their babies. Whether you’re using expressed milk or formula, make sure that your baby’s bottles are properly sterilised. You could use pre-sterilised disposable bottles and teats to make feeding in the car more convenient.

Solid food
Once your baby has moved on to solids, there are many options available for feeding them on a car journey.

• Pack jars and sachets of ready-made food.
• Take fruit that can be mashed up and served quickly, such as bananas, avocados, plums and pears.
• If you take food that needs to be ground up, a hand-operated food mill can be convenient.

It’s important to supervise babies when they’re being fed, to avoid the risk of choking.

Consider carrying all liquids in spill-proof sippy cups and use cutlery that your baby is familiar with.

Plenty of disposable bibs and wet wipes can help keep mess to a minimum.

Planning ahead for your baby’s feeds on a long car journey can take the hassle out of your trip. But make sure you also have adequate breakdown and car insurance cover so that your family is properly protected.

Author Bio:
Gargi Shastri writes for the Sainsbury’s Bank Money Matters blog on a range of topics including car insurance, car safety and other motoring topics. When she’s not writing, she enjoys yoga and cooking Indian food.

Catching up

Where should I start?

A visit to the inlaws has put me behind in my posting, and as sod's law is universal, loads of interesting things happened during the interim.

Daughter slept through last night. But that long-awaited peace came at a heavy price. My little girl is now old enough to sleep in her own room! Having her in with us meant that every time we moved on our creaky old bed, Daughter was woken in her cot. And co-sleeping didn't work, because if I'm next to her, all she wants is milk.

In fact, it was on our way home when we stopped off overnight that I made the decision to move the cot out from beside our bed. Only twin rooms were available and there were no spare cots. This meant a night of hell for me - I only got three hours of sleep as I was milked for all I was worth! Every little noise from Husband across the room woke her too so as soon as we got back, I bought a baby monitor and some more bottles. Now, we're about to go into night three sans boob, and night two of own bedroom.

The Sleep Challenge thing I've been harking on about has worked a treat. I'm now trying to be consistent with how naptimes happen. Though I'm not setting specific nap times, I am reading a story or singing a song before sleep and so far it seems to be working.

Anyway, the baby monitor says that there is stirring in the other room. I will leave you until next time.

Jabs

At eleven o'clock today, Daughter will be going for her second round of jabs. She should have had these months ago, but due to the house move and an upset tummy, I postponed it until now.

I was wracked with terrible guilt after her first course of injections. Just before the needle went in, my little girl looked up at me and offered the biggest smile she'd ever given. Then there was a look of horror and then the screaming started. I felt as though I'd betrayed that big cheesy grin.

I know she won't remember this - I don't remember my immunisations, after all. I still feel pretty mean though, getting her up from a nice long nap, offering a bottle and a snuggle and then presenting her for needle jabbing...

Urgh. Listen to me. I meant for this blog to be a place where I could talk about all the wonderful things that Daughter does, without boring my friends to bits and its become a dumping ground for every bitch and moan I ever had. I will endeavour to be more positive in future.

Over and out.

Avent

I really like my Avent bottles. Not only are they British made, but Daughter seemed to take really well to them. Except that the adapters on the Avent Classics warp in the microwave steriliser.

Trying to calm a hungry baby, and stop a bottle from leaking is not fun. Especially when you haven't been organised enough to keep a kettle full of tepid water (something I'm generally good at on account of my ten-a-day tea habit) and need to boil some fresh. You end up shaking the bottle to mix the formula and spray scalding hot milk all over yourself. Great.

So, after having just forked out for new Avent Classic bottles, I am going to have to fork out some more for the Avent Advanced.

Why not just take this opportunity to switch to the glass bottles I've spoken about before? Because doing so would result in me having to throw out all of the teats I've got an effectively start again. I wanted the glass so that I could be a little eco-friendly (and save myself some pennies instead of having to replace bottles all the time) and chucking out all the related paraphernalia to buy more doesn't accomplish this. Urgh.

I am so p*ssed off  at having had D-MER.I feel that between it, the house move and various other things, I have missed out on my daughter's early, snuggly days. All I can do now is race to catch up with her as she learns to do all kinds of exciting things and leaves me standing, longing for the cuddly feeds that I used to resent because I'd no idea  what was up with me.

New Born

We were out at the supermarket today and saw a couple with a crying new-born. The poor little thing was beside herself and it took me back.

Though Daughter does still 'go off on one' every so often, consciousness is no longer marked by an ear-splitting howl. It's amazing how, in less than five months, my child has changed so completely. People told me not to wish my time with her away, but I'm glad she's now so interested in her surroundings and is far more responsive.

I don't want to speak too soon after having put Daughter to bed, but things do seem to have become a bit easier. Slowly, by degrees, we are making some headway with sleeping. After doing the Johnson's Baby Sleep Challenge - which, I have to confess, has made me buy their night time bath - bedtime has become far, far less taxing. I still have to get up to (breast)feed twice during the night, but the timing of the last bottle of the day means that I can have a glass of wine, or a visit from Mr. Daniels with some ginger ale, every once in a while. And sometimes, after a day of screaming, a little tipple takes the edge off one's frayed nerves.

Bottles

As regular readers will know, bottles are a fairly big deal for me. It took me ages to talk myself into switching from breast to formula milk, and I wanted the easiest bottles to use out there. As a maker of preserves, I know about 100 different ways to sterilise glass jars so I thought I'd go down the route of glass bottles, however finding them is far harder than you might expect. None of my local shops had any whilst I was looking so in the end, I chose Avent because though they're owned by Philips, the bottles are still made in England. And whilst the plastic ones can be recycled when they come to the end of their - relatively short - life, its not as easy to do as with durable glass, which can just be taken down to the nearest supermarket and tossed in with the remnants of Mum and Dad's tipple from the previous evening.

As with all things, I should have checked online before making my purchase.  Born Free do a nice range,  as do Green to Grow. And if you're not a fan of buying from amazon, the nice, hippie-friendly company Spirit of Nature now sell the German brand Emil. Score.

As discussed in a previous post, I found breastfeeding really harsh on account of the D-MER which I suffered from. IF - and it's a giant 'if' - I were to ever brave labour again, I would  probably just bite the bullet straight off, stack up on some of the Emil bottles and go straight on the formula after baby had done with the colostrum. But, as I say, BIG if.

Day 4

Sceptical but silent, tonight's bath was rather more of a success than usual. The massage caused the standard howls, but new to this evening's line up was a spate of tears when Daughter was presented with her bottle.

I don't care though. Today, I got my first laugh and as a result, it has been the best day of my life so far. I've heard Daughter squeal with delight before, but this was a dopey 'huh huh huh' sort of a sound, made in the back of her throat. She has a lower voice than most babies I've heard. I'm hoping that this will lead to a lovely, silky tone when she's older but only time will tell.(I'm still giddy as I'm typing this - if it doesn't come across in my writing, you have to imagine the above gush blurted in an Alyson Hannigan-American Pie sort of way)

The glorious chuckle came as I was spinning her in circles, saying, 'weeee,' as we went. Rest assured that tomorrow, there'll be a whole lot of that going on.

Day 3

So the books might have been right about putting baby down whilst drowsy instead of asleep. After 7 hours of uninterrupted kip, I had to wake Daughter up because I thought my boobs were going to pop.

So, we try again tonight, and see if it was just a fluke.

It was fairly eye-opening, having to get Daughter to feed during the night. Up until now, I'd always thought of the relationship in terms of her being dependant on me, but that really isn't the case. I rely on her just as much.

Which is why the fact that I've started weaning her onto bottles in earnest now was a little hard to swallow at 2am. Don't get me wrong - I am having SO much fun with the baby rice, and I'm loving the intimacy that the bottle affords me - but from a purely physical perspective, we will never need each other again once this is over. Of course, emotionally it's very different, but it's still one tie I will never get back.

I'm not going to stop weaning her, but I will slow down. I aim to have her solely bottle feeding in time for our holiday in October. Until then, I will do what I can to enjoy the last vestiges of breast feeding.

Night 2

Night two of the 'sleep challenge' was a total disaster. Daughter howlded through the bath and the massage, then continued to howl for three whole hours afterwards. We had a really broken night in general though so perhaps she had tummy ache or something...

Tonight I decided to actually look at the advice given. I promised myself I'd not do this again, but even at 3 months, Daughter is getting too heavy to rock to sleep, and as I'm weaning her onto bottles, I don't want to nurse her into slumber. The advice to put the baby down drowsy seems to be the way to go... I read the chapter of Black Beauty in which Jerry takes a girl and her boy to the hospital for free in his cab, then laid Daughter carefully on her mattress. So far, five minutes on, she's still fast asleep. Normally she'd have been howling by now so we will have to wait and see how this progresses.

Now, to dinner.

Johnson's Baby sleep challenge.

When I feed Daughter, I tend to watch various TV shows over the Internet. In the ad breaks for these shows, I am often told to try the Johnson's Baby sleep challenge.

So, sleep deprived and desperate, I decided to look at the site. In honesty, it's a fairly poor design - things are hidden away that I'd like to be in clear view and the message seems to be the same as what Mum told me; bath, bottle, bed. The difference being that in order to sell more Johnson's sleep products, they've switched the bottle for a baby massage.

But what the hell, right? I figured I'd try it - sans expensive toiletries - and what do you know? It worked. I will keep it up for the suggested 7 days and see how we go.

Growing up

Milestones, they call them. Developmental milestones.

The system* would have you believe that they are to be reached at a specific time by children who are developing at the normal pace. I've come to think of the whole thing like the A1 north-bound - everyone is pushing on in the same direction, but in reality, we'll not all reach Newcastle at the same time.

Most of us are travelling by car on or around the speed limit - we're hitting Newark and our first words as and when we should. But as it's an A road and not a motorway, all kinds of other traffic is allowed to travel our path too. You get tractors - steady and strong - classic motor cars which perhaps don't have more than 4 gears but are intolerably beautiful, not to mention the occasional and eccentric horse and cart. They won't get there as quickly as the rest of us but as its the destination that matters and not the journey time, it isn't really an issue.

Except.

People get competitive. We seem to be conditioned to treat all of these milestones as markers in a race. Daughter didn't smile until she was 8 weeks - 2 weeks older than most babies. Friend's toddler didn't gain weight as fast as expected which caused health bods to worry and question his development.

Things seem to have to happen to kids so quickly - they have to sleep in their own bed from day one, be away from Mummy from the time she's ready to go back to work, and learn to smile, to talk, to crawl all according to some sort of magical calendar. When we panic if our children don't reach these milestones at the same time - if not faster - than they're supposed to, is it any wonder they're growing up too quickly? We're competitive, so we push our children forwards in an effort to say to the world, 'We are better. Our child is better.'

Just a thought...

*I'm not one of these 'fight the system' morons, I just don't know what else to call the... thing (well, system) that our growing kids are supposed to adhere to.

Battling Bottles

So, Daughter finally took a bottle.

It was a really strange experience - liberating in that she was no longer solely dependant on me, heart wrenching because she was no longer solely dependant on me, exciting because she was trying a new taste for the first time and, dare I say it? Intimate.

This is the most intimate feeding experience I've had with Daughter since she was born, and possibly the closest I've felt to her. Instead of just latching her onto a boob and then distracting myself with mindless TV, I actually took the time to look at her. We stared at one another throughout the feed, chatted a little bit and had a really snuggly time. This was the first case where I was sad when feeding was finished.

Thinking about it afterwards, I began to see why. Aside from the D-MER and the resentment that brings with it, the act of preparing the bottle had been one of love for me.

I'm a big girl - always have been and always will be - and food is one of my love things. By love things I mean, ways in which I show affection. I love to cook for people. And though it's rarely more adventurous than tossing a few chips in the fryer, or chopping a few veg up for Sunday Roast, I know that the fact I've made an effort preparing the food sets it apart from the frozen junk I am guilty of eating when it's just me in the house. The bottle was the first food I've prepared for Daughter and was the first time she felt like a big person in her own right, rather than a byproduct of pregnancy.

God, that sounds awful.

The thing is, people seem to forget that a baby is a tiny human being. When we were on holiday, I kept trying to pay childrens fare for her, but the staff kept saying, 'babies don't count'. Even my family, who we bummed the lift to France with - baby passports are a tale worth telling! - kept saying, 'There are five of us. Oh, and Daughter.' As if she wasn't to be included with the rest.

I don't know when other people are going to start seeing her as a human in her own right. When she can talk, maybe? Right now, there are just all kinds of methods and theories to be applied in regards to her feeding, sleeping, playing... why can't we just say, 'ok, this kid hates bottles and likes to sleep with Mum and Dad'? It doesn't make her naughty or unhealthy because she has a preference she's unable to articulate...

Toddler

I introduced my friend's toddler to Daughter today, which was a very surreal experience. The little boy who had previously seemed so small now appeared enormous.

He was fascinated by the baby, and kept trying to teach her about the animals on his picture cards - which I thought was adorable. It's funny to think though, that teaching must be such an intrinsic part of human nature that even the smallest amongst us want to pass on knowledge. It is a fine thing.

In other news, I found a formula that Daughter will take. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, I bought a variety of ready-made formula cartons and so far, Aptamil seems to be the one she likes best. It has also had the least effect on her poo, which is far more than I can say for the Hipp Organic stuff... that resulted in a fudge-like explosion of stinkyness.

I've resolved to keep up breast feeding until she starts solids, just replacing the evening munch-fest with a bottle at the moment. Then as she gets more and more into real food, I'll do fewer and fewer feeds, eventually replacing what she does have from me with the Aptamil. Let's see how it goes...

Bath, bed, bottle.

My mother told me the other day that the bedtime routine of 'bath, bed, bottle' never fails so dutifully, I began to instigate it. The bath, to my great surprise, was the easy part. Though Daughter hated baths initially, working one into her day was a doddle. I decided to ignore the books again and didn't make the water blood temperature as was suggested, but rather comfortably warm on my elbow. It made all the difference and now baths are no longer the stuff of nightmares.

Bed has always been fairly easy. It's only in the last week or so that Daughter has decided she'd rather not sleep by herself so as long as we don't give in to this current trend, there shouldn't be an issue there.

As for bottle though...

You may (or may not) have read my musings on formula vs breastfeeding but after much careful deliberation, I decided to give up the hardest* feed of the day. My idea was to give Daughter a bottle of formula before bed to give myself a little break from the hormonal rush, give Husband some quality time with Daughter and to allow myself to get some cleaning done.

Daughter had other ideas though. Whilst she's always taken a bottle of expressed milk fairly easily, she absolutely would not take the formula. So, disheartened and miserable after 30 minutes of crying and with only 40mls gone, I decided to resort to the good ol' boobies.

I decided not to take it as defeat though. I've got a few different types of formula to try her with, and if that doesn't work... well, I bought baby rice. I know Daughter is too young now, but rather than getting down about having to continue with breastfeeding, I thought I could focus on the fact that soon, I won't have to do it so often anyway.

*Hard on account of the low milk supply and D-MER.