Warming bottles

While some babies seem to happily drink their milk cold, most prefer it warm. To check the temperature of the milk, you can drop a little milk onto the inside of your wrist; it should be blood temperature or even a bit cool.

You can warm a bottle by either:
 

• Allowing it to standing in a container of hot water for a few minutes.
• Heating it in a microwave - the teat should be off when you do this so hot air won't get trapped in the bottle.

Heating using a microwave:
 

• As microwaves heat unevenly, make sure that you shake the bottle well after heating to mix through any 'hot spots'.
• Go gently when heating milk - its much easier to add a little extra heat to a bottle that's a bit cool, but another thing entirely to quickly cool down an overheated bottle.
• Heating a bottle in a microwave will not in anyway change the contents of the bottle.

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This article was written by Ella Walsh for Kidspot. Sources include SA Government's Parenting and Child Health.