Planning a trip with your baby? Planning on traveling with formula?
Check out these tips for planes, cars, trains, RVs, or even for just a day at the park.
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There is a lot of paraphernalia that goes into any outing with an infant. For bottle-fed babies, often the primary concern is traveling with formula. How do you keep the bottles fresh? Clean? Ready to go?
You could buy individual ready to use bottles, available in 32 oz, 8 oz, and 2 oz (pictured). But that gets pretty expensive. And, they need to be refrigerated and used within 24 hours of opening. So, powdered formula is the way to go. But that can get messy…
Pre-measure
The best way to travel with formula is to be prepared with everything pre-measured. That includes the powder as well as the water. You know your child and you know how much they take in each bottle. Have several bottles pre-filled with the amount of water you will need for each serving (click here to read more about taking water through airport security). And, have the corresponding amount of powdered formula pre-measured. You can do this in a container specifically made for this purpose or even ziploc bags. (The few dollars for the container is totally worth it to avoid the mess of using the baggies.)
When we’ve travelled on long haul flights, I have used a combination of the formula dispenser and baggies to ensure more than enough servings. I like the one pictured above since it comes with 3 sections that can each hold enough formula for an 8 oz serving and it comes with a separate dispenser for one serving. You can take the mini one with you on a quick outing.
If you don’t own enough bottles to last the duration of the trip, fill what you have. Just pack a bottle of water with you for the rest of the feedings.
Which Bottle?
We have been big fans of the Playtex Drop-Ins with all of our kids. They come in 4 and 8-10 oz and have several benefits that are beyond the scope of this post. (Please contact me if you want my opinion on this bottle.)
The primary benefit for traveling with formula is the fact that the liner is disposable! Do you really want to be washing out your bottles in an airplane or rest stop bathroom? And what if you don’t get to it for a day or two? Just throw out the liner and all you have to wash is the bottle nipple. No bottle brush needed and it’s like a newly sterilized bottle every time.
Temperature
What I am about to say may be controversial: When your baby is ready for a bottle, just pour the pre-measured formula into the bottle with the pre-measured water and shake. And you’re ready to go.
I can hear all those [first-time] parents out there: What about warming the bottle!?!?
If you’re on a plane, you could request hot water from the flight attendant and soak the bottle until it gets to the desired temperature (it may happen more quickly with the Drop-Ins than a conventional bottle). In an RV, you could boil water as well. But, do you really want to be fumbling with boiling water at 35,000 feet? (Or any other time?)
We always gave our kids room temperature bottles. The only time we warmed bottles, was if they had been in the refrigerator and we had to bring them back to room temperature. This was so for formula as well as mother’s milk. This was true for our kids when they were also nursing as well as no longer nursing. We realized that if they became accustomed to warm bottles, that’s all they would take. Then, we’d have a problem.
This had nothing to do with traveling with formula and everything to do with making a bottle at 3 am while half asleep with a crying newborn!
Next time you’re planning a trip and need to travel with formula for your baby, a few simple preparation steps can make all the difference.
Read on: