So as you can imagine we wash a fair amount of bottles around here. I have gotten use to the clutter of bottles, nipples and everything else that is included in needing 32 bottles a day hanging out on my counter which is huge for this mom that hates having things not put away. Thirty-two bottles is 8 feedings for four babies in a 24 hour period. Just this last week the babies have been stretching their nighttime feedings out so we have dropped a whole feeding! When the babies first started coming home I would wash bottles twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening but I quickly got tired of washing bottles and had other things to fill my time so now we wash one time in the evening and I use a very good friend of mine...the dishwasher. This post will probably be very boring to many of you so if you don't care to see how we prepare a days worth of food for the quadlings feel free to skip this post.
Throughout the day used bottles get tossed into two basins on the kitchen counter. By wash time the basins are overflowing. This is also where pacifiers get tossed that land on the floor or just look like they need to be washed.
It is then time to load the dishwasher. We use four baskets but I need to add another because they are quite full. There is a basket for the bottle rings, one for the nipples, one for the caps an then one for the straws & vents for the Dr. Brown bottles. All bottles go on the top rack now after we lost two bottles due to them falling through the bottom rack! I use the Method disc for washing because they claim to be non-toxic. I do periodically wash the nipples by hand because a white film is left in them from the dishwasher.
After they have finished washing we let them dry on the drying racks.Usually the washer finishes right before the last feeding of the night so we take the bottles right out of the washer and prepare five or so feedings and then the rest of the wet bottles and parts go on the racks to dry overnight!
We start preparing the bottles by gathering all the pumped breast milk I have and we also mix up some Neosure formula. The babies still get three bottles of formula a day and the rest is breast milk.
We then pour the milk and formula into the bottles. Kenzie gets 60ml, Isabella gets 75ml, Tate gets 85ml, and Rylan also gets 75ml. This is between 2-2.5oz per feed. If they finish and still seem hungry we give them another ounce. If they have a couple feedings were they do not seem satisfied I add another 5ml. We have had to back off a couple times with Tate because we will add more to his feeding but he spits it right back at us because of his reflux. On the formula bottles I give everyone but Kenzie 90ml and the peanut gets 75. I don't mind if they waste the formula but the breast milk bottles are pure gold in their momma's eyes.
We add 1ml of Tri-Vi Sol with Iron to the 5:00pm feeding each day. The babies are all anemic and so the Iron is very important for them. For those in the medical field, Kenzie & Tate's hct is 26 and Rylan & Isabella's is 27 so we do not forget to give this to them each day.
They all get lined up in order on the counter. The get two breast milk bottles and then a formula bottle. Tate gets the Avent bottle, Rylan is blue, Kenzie is pink and Isabella is white.
In the fridge they go so we can just pull the first row when it is time to eat.
We warm bottles by placing them in a container of hot water. Now that we have increased volumes we have to replace the water once to get the bottles to a temp that the kiddos like. If it is too cold it takes them forever to eat and they do a lot of choking.
Feeding babies is easy and quick if you have two people feeding but sometime I am alone with all four or the older kids need attending to at the same time. Bottle propping has been unsuccessful until yesterday when I figured out a way that works. Burping didn't go so well and all the kids had a fair amount of spit up on them so I will need to figure that part out!
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| Tate's Avent bottles don't fit in these propers so Rylan was nice enough to share with his brother | | | |
So that is how bottles are done with the Lesnau quads. A more entertaining post to follow!
