I have been exclusively breast feeding my son up until recently. I am in construction and do not want to pump in the car in the cold so I have stopped pumping. I have a good storage but I only made 5oz packages and my son will drink 7-9oz so we have been mixing formula with breastmilk. I follow the directions on the container but when I shake the bottle it gets really foamy. The foam goes away after I add the breastmilk. I have seen others feed just formula and never seen so much foam. Is this normal, I,am I doing something wrong, is their a way to make it less foamy?
It's fine, formula foamed quite often when I used it. I had to supplement formula with breast milk in bottles for a while. My doctor said it was fine to mix formula with breast milk. I alsways mixed up the formula first as on the directions of the package and then added the breast milk.
hope it helps.
Technically you're not suppose to shake it. You should tip it back and forth until it is mixed. That of course takes longer and doesn't always get the lumps out, try swirling it. That may help!
I used a drop of mylicon (or generic version) when I made the formula. It is true that warmer water dissolves the formula quicker, but if you aren't somewhere you can get warm water and have to use room temperature, the anti-gas remedy works great. Both my kids had issues with gas anyway, so it also seemed to help with spitting up.
It is probably just the difference in formula brands how much it foams, plus if you are using warm water it will foam more than with cold water. I always used warm water and had very foamy bottles.
In my experience most formulas are very foamy. One way to minimize the foam is to stir it rather than shake it. Otherwise the Goodstart formula doesn't foam up at all. That is what my son ended up on after Simlac and Enfamil caused him issues and once my daughter was able to come off of the premie formula she went to goodstart and is not nearly as spitty as she was and it is not foamy, at all like a said.
You shouldn't shake breast milk at all. I wouldn't mix the formula in with the breast milk either...I would make the breastmilk and then make the extra couple oz of formula.
I always stirred with a spoon instead of shaking. It produces less foam that way.
I have heard that you should never mix breastmilk with formula because it's hard to digest. But that's just what I heard in a class given by the clinic, otherwise I would do it too. It might be worth checking into.
The Similac foams after shaking, I had the same thing as you when I added breastmilk, less foamy...and now he is exclusively on Target brand and that foams a lot less. It's normal!:)
I always stir the formula with water in a coffee cup or a measuring cup and then pour it into the bottle. This keeps it from being foamy. However, there are times where this just doesn't work, like when we are not at home, so in those cases, I will make a bottle in advance, so that we don't have to shake it up.
My friend had a cute little hand held drink mixer that worked really well for her, since she is always out and about. I think she picked it up at Target.
The amount of foam varies with brand. We started with Enfamil after my daughter was born and that always had quite a bit of foam after shaking. We later switched to store brand (Shopko, Target and WalMart are all manufactured by the same company, so we get whatever's most convenient at the time) and that really doesn't foam at all.
I found that stiring with a spoon worked much better. It also seemed that my son was a lot less gassy without all the foam. Less spit ups.
Congrats on the new baby!
I have formula fed all 3 of my children and with my experiences, different kinds of formula foam more than others. One thing you can do, is mix the amount that you'll be using that day and keep in in the fridge. You're probably warming up the breast milk anyway, so it wouldn't be an extra work. By having stuff mixed up ahead of time, the foam has a chance of settling before you give the bottle to your little one.
Congratulations on your little boy!
