Safe Bottle and Baby Food Handling
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What Parents Can Do... The Communicable Disease Practice safe food handling when preparing foods to bring to child care: i.e. wash hands, prepare foods on clean and sanitized surfaces, use clean containers that close Outreach program staff tightly and wrap foods well to protect from contamination. offers consultations and Refrigerate bottles until you are ready to leave home. STARS approved training to Immediately refrigerate all bottles of breast milk and all child care providers in formula and any perishable baby foods once you arrive at the child care. Snohomish County. We Label each bottle with your baby’s name and the date encourage child care the bottle/food was prepared. providers to take Send bottles to child care for one day only. advantage of our services Infant Food Safety Take any bottles left at the end of the day home with you. to improve the health and Bottles of frozen breast milk should not stay at the child safety of children in their Safe Bottle and Baby Food care for more than two weeks. care. Handling in Child Care Send bottles filled with the amount of fluid your baby usually drinks during a feeding instead of full bottles, even if it means bringing more bottles. This eliminates waste. Caregivers can prepare another bottle if your baby needs more. Send only unopened containers of commercially prepared baby foods to the child care. Communicate often with the child care provider about your baby’s feeding cues. Inform your child care provider about the signals your baby gives when hungry, full or playful. This will better help the child care provider understand and nurture your baby. CDO_InfantFoodSafety_12/10_mhas What Child Care Providers Can Do... Safe Preparation of Baby Bottles Storage of Baby Bottles Safe Preparation of Baby Foods Partition off the bottle preparation area or Bottles brought into child care by the parent Consult with parents about introducing solid place it at least 8 feet from the diaper should be clearly labeled with child’s name foods and the cup to babies. changing area. and date and stored in the refrigerator so the contents are at 41° F or less. Do not place Baby foods brought into the child care Wash hands before bottles in the door area of the refrigerator. should be labeled, dated and stored in an preparing bottles. isolated area which is dedicated to foods Ask parents to bring bottles of breastmilk and only (well away from the diaper changing Follow directions on formula in an amount the baby usually drinks area and cleaning agents). the container and daily. mix bottles using All perishable foods or homemade baby lukewarm water. Water from a handsink is foods should be labeled and immediately not allowed. stored in the refrigerator so that the foods are at 41° F or below. Make sure your staff do Use only cleaned and sanitized bottles and everything to provide for the nipples when preparing powdered, Wash hands before preparing baby food for concentrate, or ready to feed formulas. babies. comfort and safety of infants Prepare bottles on demand (shortly before in your child care. Take serving) or refrigerate bottles until ready to Open jars of baby food only when the baby serve. is ready to eat them. special care to handle all Plan ahead, thaw bottles of breastmilk in the Portion small amounts of baby food into a infant foods in a way that main body of the refrigerator to use for the clean dish and use a clean spoon to feed reduces the risk of foodborne next day. Frozen bottles of breastmilk may baby. also be thawed by running them under illness. Some foodborne warm running water or in a pan of warm Immediately store opened baby food illnesses can cause vomiting water and use immediately. Do not refreeze containers in refrigerator. Make sure they are breastmilk. clearly labeled. and/or diarrhea; some Unused bottles of thawed breastmilk or Before serving, warm bottles by running them formula left in the refrigerator for more than foodborne illnesses cause life under warm tap water (<120° F) or by 12 hours should be sent home at the end of -threatening illness. placing them in a container of warm water the day or discarded. (< 120° F) for less than 5 minutes. If a crock Dehydration pot is used to warm up bottles the water Throw away the contents of any bottle not may occur temperature should not exceed 120° F and it fully consumed within one hour. Do not put should be emptied, sanitized and refilled bottles that have been served back into the which is daily. refrigerator. especially Never microwave bottles of formula or Store frozen labeled bottles of breastmilk at dangerous breastmilk. Microwave heating can create 10° F or less in the main body of the freezer hot spots and may destroy some of the for up to 2 weeks. After that time they should for infants. immune properties and nutrients in be sent home with the parent or discarded. breastmilk. .