NT Homemade Baby Formula

[Wildflowers]

Does anyone use the NT homemade baby formula? I have a few questions if any experienced mommas can help out...

Milk based or meat based?

What do you do when you are out for the day and need to bring formula?

What about traveling, how does that work?

Can you freeze the formula? For how long?

How long can a bottle be out at room temperature? (ie. commercial formula can be out for one hour after mixing, breast milk can be out for 6-10 hours?)

How can you tell if your baby isn't tolerating the milk based formula (I've read scary stories about intolerance to the milk protein in cows milk, bloody stools, etc.)?

Anything else I should know?

Thanks! I appreciate any help you can offer.

[PingPong'sMom]

I'm sure you had these questions answered by now but I'll abbreviate.

I used the raw cows milk formula. I never tried the meat based.

I poured individual bottles and took them with me. In the dead of winter, I just put them in the diaper bag for short trips and in a cooler for longer trips. However, I noticed that the coconut oil hardened and needed to be warmed a bit, even if with your hands. Summer, I put them in a cooler but didn't worry too much about a cold pack. Based on how long of a trip.

I never froze the formula, just because. I suppose you can, but I made it weekly with fresh milk, etc.

In the winter, I would leave a bottle out on the kitchen counter as we went to bed (around 10-11pm?) and feed it to her at the 2am feeding. Left another bottle out on the counter/next to the bed for the 6am feeding...

We never had adverse affects. She thrived on it. And I was looking too. Trust yourself to see if your babe's in distress. I think you'll know if something's funny.

Good luck! I loved the formula... if we have another one and for whatever reason I can't get milk out of the boobs, I'm at least comfortable with this alternative. For us, it was between no letdown, commercial formula or homemade. I chose to feed the kid and with the (what I consider) the best quality ingredients if not directly from the tap!

[cristeen]

Be forewarned, this is a volatile subject around here.

I used the meat based for about a week before we got donor milk. We had tried commercial formula and were worried the intolerance was to the milk.

The recipe only makes a days worth if thats all they're getting. Making it requires planning ahead, for whey, stock and liver. I couldnt stand the smell of his burps, the CLO smell made me gag.

I would absolutely do it again in the early days. But we got milk to last until 7 mos, and after that i didnt have the energy to make formula every day, we went on commercial formula. We may be going back to making it again though, since the formula cos are playing w their ingredients. But my guy is almost 11 mos at this point and eating a lot of solids.

If you have other questions, feel free to pm me.

[Astrea]

Why is it a volatile topic here? Just curious, not being antagonistic.

I considered doing this with Willow (we adopted her at 4 days old). My MIL who is a maternity nurse took the recipe to some doctors at our request, and they all gave it the . I didn't have a ready source for raw milk, though, and it was going to be very very expensive to make (more than conventional formula by far), so we didn't do it and went with conventional formula instead. We didn't really have any time to prepare since we had 48 hours' warning before bringing Willow home, so everything was a bit of a mad scramble to say the least :

I was thinking just this afternoon that depending on our circumstances next time we adopt, I'd like to consider the WAPF homemade formula again (if not homemade, then at least hopefully organic... I was so disappointed to discover that even though I live in Canada, all formula sold here is made from American cows' milk and therefore contains the hormones and antibiotics that are completely illegal in Canada ).

Anyway, I'd love to hear more about the WAPF homemade formula.

[Wildflowers]

Thank you all so much for replying! I hadn't gotten replies right away, so I had stopped checking. PingPong'sMom: thanks for the tips! That will make quick trips and night time feedings soooo much easier. I didn't know you could leave the formula out for several hours at a time. I'm going to try that tonight. From another forum/group I learned that the formula can be frozen and stored in breastmilk storage bags. Some people make enough ahead of time and freeze for long trips.

I've been making the formula for a couple of weeks now. I don't have access to raw milk, so I turn non-homogenized grass fed whole milk into kefir, which is really easy to do. I use the left over kefir to make the homemade whey, which is even easier to do. The cheese that is the byproduct of the whey is really good! So far DS is doing really well. He's a happy guy, his skin is becoming soooo silky soft, and his poops are returning to a normal color. He's a giant baby, 20 pounds at 3 months, and was eating around 40 oz of commercial formula. His poops gradually turned dark green from all the iron he was getting. The ped recommended feeding him rice cereal (this was when he was only 2 months old) to satisfy his appetite. I thought that was ridiculous, and decided to look for something better. It took me a few weeks to gather up the ingredients and the nerve to try the homemade formula, but I'm soooo glad I did it. I would recommend it to anyone who is unable to breastfeed and is looking for an alternative to commercial formula.

Thanks again, ladies, for your replies.

[Ruthla]

Cristeen, with an 11mo who's eating a reasonable variety of solids, you may want to consider putting him on the best quality milk (cow or goat) you can find and not bothering to make it into formula.

[cristeen]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

Cristeen, with an 11mo who's eating a reasonable variety of solids, you may want to consider putting him on the best quality milk (cow or goat) you can find and not bothering to make it into formula.

I've thought about it. I'm just not sure i'm comfortable that he'd be getting everything he needs that way. He does eat a fair bit some days, but then some days he doesnt. He loves broccoli, fruit, pork, salmon, chicken, eggs, beans, cheese, etc. I can pretty reliably get him to eat liver. But calorically speaking he's nowhere near what he needs. What I'll probably do is just fortify the milk w the fats and probiotics from the formula recipe, and make sure hes getting liver a couple times a week, rather than making the entire recipe.