"Anne Rogers" wrote in message
...
However, there is no need to boil the water in most places. You can give
your baby tap water in a cup during meals beginning at 6 months, so why
not make formula with it? (I don't have any experience with formula.)

Patty, drinking fresh water from the tap is a whole different ball game
than making formula with it, water from the tap has a very small number of
bacteria in it, which is fine just to drink, but when you mix it with
formula powder, it then provides a place for the bacteria to breed, which
quickly tips it over to not being fine, particularly as the powder itself
is not entirely free of bacteria. So formula needs to be made with boiled
water that has not been left to cool for too long. In an emergency it can
be made with bottled water, but there needs to be caution as this can
provide too much of some minerals, ready mixed is a better emergency back
up.
Cheers

Anne


The rule of thumb I've read is that you *should* boil the water until the
baby is 6 months old, and that's only because while city water *should* be
safe, it can become contaminated without notice and a young baby may not be
able to fight off the bacteria. That is, city tap water for younger than 6
months should be fine most of the time, but when it's not, it's more
dangerous than for an older baby.
Once the baby is 6 months, you don't need to boil the water prior to making
formula, just use the cold water from the tap and heat up prior to mixing.
To be honest, I use warm water from the tap most of the time, but I'm pretty
confident I don't have lead pipes in my home or from the town supply.
HOWEVER, I do agree that using non-boiled tap water does increase the
bacteria risk over that of boiled water. I make up bottles on an as needed
basis (no batches) and discard all unused formula immediately. Since we
combination feed, I don't use a set amount of formula per day so I couldn't
predict how much we'd use. If I were going to make a batch of formula to
use throughout the day, I'd probably boil first, keep it refrigerated, and
use that day.

HTH,

Amy