Question about switching from boiled water to tap water

My girls just turned 8 months and I am thinking of stopping the boiling of water for their formula. This might be a dumb question. If I make up formula fresh right before each feed, can I use warm tap water so I don't have to heat it or its that a bad idea? Should I use cold water?

 

Definitely do not use warm tap water. There are chemicals that leach into the hot water heater and for that reason the EPA recommends not drinking warm tap water. We've been giving our boys tap water since they were like 4 or 5 months old, but only cold tap water. And honestly I bet your boys would do fine on just room temperature tap water. Heck, we started giving our boys bottles straight out of the fridge around 6 months old and they didn't mind it a bit!

 

Is this everywhere or only in your area? I've never heard of that.
We would use cold water but then we took extremely hot tap water and placed the bottles in mugs for several minutes to heat them up.

 

What we used to do was make a double strength batch of formula in a pitcher, then when they started to get hungry, we would turn on the electric tea kettle. Pour Double strength formula 1/2 way into the bottle, (put in the cereal (thanks reflux)), then fill the rest of the way with boiling water (because by now the water was boiling).

What we *should* have done was moved towards cold water earlier so that way I could give them room temperature or cold formula, so the switch to whole milk was easier.

 

I never did tap water. I dont drink it so I figured, why should they. ardon: I just bought bottles of Nursery Water at the store and used that until after they were one.

 

Sounds like you were just using the hot tap water to set your bottles in, which would be fine. I was talking about making formula with hot tap water.

From the EPA website:

Only Use Cold Water for Consumption
Use only water from the cold-water tap for drinking, cooking, and especially for making baby formula. Hot water is likely to contain higher levels of lead.The two actions recommended above are very important to the health of your family. They will probably be effective in reducing lead levels because most of the lead in household water usually comes from the plumbing in your house, not from the local water supply.

And here is another link on why you shouldn't ingest or cook with hot tap water. There are tons of such links out there if you google it.

 

I've done that trick myself a few times but I always wondered if "shocking" the formula with hot water did anything to it, as opposed to heating it slowly. I have gradually been giving them more room temp formula with the thought in mind that cold milk will eventually be given to them. Its not a big deal to have boiled water sitting on the counter for bottles, maybe I'll just keep doing it then and stick to room temp bottles. I thought it might make my life easier if I could use warm water from the tap, but seems like a bad idea. Glad I asked. Thanks girls!!!!!!!!!!!

 

same here. we filter our water, so when we made the switch around 7 or 8 months we went to filtered water rather than straight tap water.

 

I've always heard not to drink hot or warm tap water because of the possibility of higher concentrations of lead. ardon: I always used filtered cold water to mix formula ahead of time, then we just heated the bottles.

 

I formula feed at night, and I just put tap water into the bottles and then dump in the formula when it's time to eat. They have no problem taking it at room temp.

 

Yeah, no warm or hot tap water to mix. The warm/hot pulls residue from the joints of your plumbing which can be higher in lead concentration, rust, etc. But we would bring out hot water and set the bottle in to warm it. Also, ours would never drink cold either. I turn on the faucet and when I feel it switch over to colder water I quick fill up bottles. When they were younger I would put the cold water in the microwave for 10-15 secs until it was room temp, then pour it in the bottles. I hate mixing the formula in cold anyway because it doesn't dissolve quickly.