Thankfully this little monkey is on solids now so the bottle days will, hopefully, soon be behind us. Not soon enough!
WHEN I win the Lotto I won’t buy jewels or cars, clothes or handbags, gadgets or holidays. There’ll be no shopping sprees, no fancy restaurants, no new furniture.
Instead I will employ someone to wash, sterilise and make up my baby’s bottles for me so that I never, ever have to do that POXY job ever again. I’ll pay well and all I’ll ask is that any time I open my fridge there’ll be a beautifully clean, perfectly made up bottle sitting there, ready for me to heat.
That’s all I want. Do you hear me, God? That’s all I want out of life. To be free from the tyranny of bottle making.
And it IS a tyranny, make no mistake about it. The bottles have to be taken apart and washed in scalding soapy water. [Warm water is no good, it doesn’t remove the FUCKING Gaviscon caked into the bottles. Any mothers out there with a refluxy baby will know what I’m on about]. Then rinsed and put back together, then sterilised. Then you have to boil a kettle and leave it to cool for 30 minutes. Then, just as you’re about to lose the will to live, you have to measure out precisely the amount of water you need and add in perfectly level scoops of formula to match that amount. And you have to do this EVERY day. There is no escape. There is no ‘fuck it, it’s Saturday, it can wait til tomorrow.’ Every day. EVERY day.
Imagine the worst hangover you’ve ever had (that’s what sleep deprivation is like) and add in a fractious/curious/bored/hungry/tired baby. Now imagine a line of bottles, filled with water waiting for you to count in scoops of formula, despite your hangover. And despite the child in your ear. Was that scoop number five or number six? Are you sure? Are you REALLY sure? (While we’re on the subject: is that poo on the baby’s head, or chocolate? Are you sure? Are you REALLY sure?)
Once the bottles are made they have to be cooled before being put in the fridge. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve put bottles into a sink of water to cool only to return HOURS later to find them still there, meaning I’ve had to start the whole soul crushing process all over again. It’s torture. Torture.
Parents often reminisce about what their lives were like before they had children, remembering, misty eyed, nights on the tiles, spontaneous weekends away, holidays, uninterrupted meals and sleep. Me, I remember a time BB – before bottles. Where my life wasn’t ruled by Tommee Tippee. Where I could throw caution to the winds and not do the washing up if I didn’t feel like it.
Someone to do the bottles. That all I want. Are you listening, God? Are you?
Beating Myself Into a Dress 
Robyn Morton (@robyntmorton)
Welcome back Karen! And be optimistic. It’s lotto day tomorrow 😉
beatingmyselfintoadress
Thank you! Yes, will be doing the Lotto big time tomorrow. It’s my turn, I can feel it!
Sandra Boyd (@Shumbles)
Oh janey mac I hear ya. I hear ya. I spent vital minutes when I could’ve been saving the world and painting the windows and drinking coffee with my feet up (yeah like that’d ever happen) peering at the stupid little grooves in the Dr Brown bottles today. Bursting for a wee I was… sigh
beatingmyselfintoadress
Oh God, SO many times I’ve been bursting for a wee with the timer on 29 minutes and I’ve almost broke my neck legging it back down the stairs.
office mum
Great to see you back blogging and love the new look blog! And when I win the Euromillions tonight (it’s not gone already I take it), I will send you a bottle-washer
beatingmyselfintoadress
Thank you! Oh THANK YOU!
Aedin
Oh man I hear ya!Feckin bottles!The panic of having boiled the kettle and being on minute 27 or thereabouts only for a visitor to the house to call from the kitchen-I’ve just put the kettle on,will I make you a cuppa?
Nooooo!!!!
beatingmyselfintoadress
Hahahhahahaha! I’ve taken to saying to visitors ‘Hello! You can have a cup of tea in 17 minutes. Now leave the damn kettle ALONE!’
Karen Blanche
As I sit here at 4.31am feeding my 5 week old daughter I can 100% relate to this post! My poor hands have formed scales from the amount of time spent immersed in hot water not to mention the amount of steam burns I have gotten from the stupid steriliser! 😦
beatingmyselfintoadress
I’ve burnt my fingerprints off taking bottles out of the damn steriliser! Congratulations on the new baba!
martinamullen27
love this blog Karen, brings back memories of making the bottles….i was a young single mom when my first born daughter was guzzeling the sma, i of course for the first few weeks was adding the scoops then the water to the bottles instead of the other way around!!!shes alive and kicking 23years later despite my folly lol but i dont miss the monotony of the bottle making…i breasfed a couple of the kids briefly after that, and the bottle making is the better option…the babys 7 and when the nurse in the ward asked if id consider breastfeeding, needless to say i put her straight immediately. Id say it was the shortest lecture she ever attempted
beatingmyselfintoadress
I thought it was scoops first then water too until I read the back of the packet! Clueless!
martinamullen27
i wana write a blog…any tips
Sharon
It’s the scoop-doubting that gets me, I have to shout numbers out loud like a nutcase or I forget. Also, have you ever tried to distinguish between 2 sizes of Avent teat in crap light at 3am? One of mine has 3s, one has 2s. If the wrong baby gets the wrong teat, CARNAGE. Also one has colief and one doesn’t. Also I feel terrible because I really do leave the water much longer than 30 mins and I’ve not been cooling them! Oops
beatingmyselfintoadress
Oh no. I couldn’t cope with two. You are SUPERWOMAN!
beatingmyselfintoadress
Bit late for breastfeeding now, baby is almost nine months old. Even if I had breastfed though, I would have expressed some to allow my husband to do some feeds, so I still would have had to wash and sterilise bloody bottles!!
Your wife is a very lucky woman Longford Mike! (Joke!)
Jigs
It’s also a bitch to get the gaviscon into your boobs…..in all seriousness Mike you’re really asking a woman about her choices on baby feeding? I’m sure everyone has weighed up what’s best and what’s achievable for themselves and their babies. I know there’s no malice in the question, but it’s a question that mostly shouldn’t be asked.
Sharon
What a condescending article you are, “Longford Mike”. I can guarantee we are not all as judgemental in Longford, I am just after washing and sterilising 12 bottles myself. Or maybe I should be walking round with a baby hanging off each boob too. Mind your own business there’s a good lad. “Us men don’t need to get involved” – thankfully some of us, including the author of this post, have husbands or partners who not only “get involved”, but are over the moon to have a hand in rearing their own children. Obviously you are not of the same persuasion, probably one of those who boast about “babysitting” their own children once or twice a year. Happy fatherhood!!!! (joke)
sporadicjournal
Do you have to use that phrase “a baby hanging off each boob” – I really hate when I hear breastfeeding being referred to like that. Respect should work both ways 🙂
nameprotected
Mike,
You’re a genius! I’m sure Karen has never thought of breast feeding until you suggested it as an alternative to washing bottles. Us women folk* are eternally grateful for your sage advice (joke)**
Clionadh
*Women folk. A phrase generally used by rootin’ tootin’ cowboys in the 1800s.
See also “little ladies” and “the fairer sex”
** (joke). A phrase often used at the end of a passive aggressive or obnoxious statement so that the writer can argue that anyone that doesn’t agree with them doesn’t have a sense of humour.
Can also be quoted to poke fun at an earlier statement for its levels of idiocy.
Ciara holland
I had a second kettle, but I definitely let it cool more than 30 mins. Sometimes probably less. Child is still alive to tell the tale. Would personally have preferred to breast feed but with little support and knowledge I only managed to express for 2 weeks combined with formula
beatingmyselfintoadress
Hey everyone. Mike has contacted me and apologised sincerely for his joke about breastfeeding and I have accepted his apology. He knows that he caused unintended offence and is sorry. I have deleted his comments so we can move on as this really was just supposed to be a lighthearted blog about how tedious it is to wash up! Thank you!
nameprotected
Fair enough.
Oh and as I scalded my hands while washing up bottles this morning, I thought of you 😉
akismet-925978d60e9e398b9b52ffef187825e6
Oh I hear ya Karen! I hated making bottles for my son. I couldn’t move him on to sippy cups in the daytime fast enough. Of course he had different ideas and it took six or seven different sippy cups before we finally found one his lordship would deign to drink from. And a week after his first birthday it was cows milk all the way. The sheer joy of pouring milk directly into his bedtime bottle without having to count scoops.
chicachicababies
I finally started putting our bottles in the dishwasher. It was like the heavens parted. (But I still felt like I was doing something so “wrong”).