Is it really necessary?

[brooke22]

Boiling the water takes the bacteria and the bad grubs out of it. So it is pretty essential.
I stopped boiling the water when my DD was 1.
Id recommend boiling the water unless you have a water purifier on your tap.
What I used to do is sterilise a 2 litre jug, then boil water and keep it in the jug, using it whenever you make bottles so you dont have to boil then cool the water.

[tracey]

Yep, it is a precaution to get all the "bad stuff" out of the water. We always bought jugs of Nursery Water to use for mixing formula to avoid having to do that.

[LenaGardner]

I'm not ff, but my Ped recommends using nursery water if I were. It is sterilized and has added flouride...if you use reg. bottled water you miss out on the flouride. Good luck!

[Megan Turnidge]

Wow. See, I've NEVER heard of using boiled water/nursery water! None of my friends or family who formula-fed did.. just used filtered water... but then again, I was so determined to BF I wasn't really interested in researching anything related to formula. lol

[ditzyscrap]

I'm a horrible parent...I did boil the water at first, but then I was like...nahhh...and so I stopped. I just used tap water.

And actually, both of my sisters had their babies on formula this past week when we were camping (they were 9 months and 6 months old, the girls) and they never boiled the water, either...and we were CAMPING (though we were using bottled water for drinking...those big 5G jugs of water). I'm pretty sure my sister with the 9 month old just uses tap water at home, and she lives in the Dominican Republic, where the water can't be that good for you, lol (in fact my sister isn't allowed to drink the water because she's not a native Dominican, she could get really sick from the bacteria/parasites because she's not used to them...she can only drink bottled water that is imported).

[Megan Turnidge]

SO I consulted my "What to Expect the First Year" book and I quote:
"It isn't necessary to sterilize the water used to mix formula by boiling it. If you're unsure about the safety of your tap water or if you use well water that hasn't been purified, ahve your supply tested and, if necessary, purified..."

I like that answer. lol! I think I'll go with purified water.

[lauren grier]

I didn't boil.. I just used the pur filter or whatever I had at the time. If it's safe for me to drink, it's safe for my kid to drink too.

[Shawna]

I've never boiled water for a bottle of formula with any of my 3 kids, although I did use the Nursery brand water for a little bit with Kaylie. Mostly I just used water straight from the tap since our Ped said it was okay to do it that way. Oh and I used the generic/store brands from Target and Walmart most of the time (unless I had a really good coupon for the name brands) and they are just fine and they are SO much cheaper.