Preparation of Cow's Milk at Home

What articles are required for the preparation of cow's milk at home?

Feeding-bottles, rubber nipples, an eight-ounce graduated measuring glass, a glass or agate funnel, bottle brush, cotton, alcohol lamp or, better, a Bunsen gas burner, a tall quart cup for warming bottles of milk, a pitcher for mixing the food, a wide-mouth bottle for boric acid and one for bicarbonate of soda, and a pasteurizer. Later, a double boiler for cooking cereals will be needed.

What bottles are to be preferred?

A cylindrical graduated bottle with a rather wide neck, so as to admit of easy washing, and one which contains no angles or corners. A single size holding eight ounces is quite sufficient for use during the first year. All complicated bottles are bad, being difficult to clean. One should have as many bottles in use as the child takes meals a day.

How should bottles be cared for?

As soon as they are emptied they should be rinsed with cold water and allowed to stand filled with water to which a little bicarbonate of soda has been added. Before the milk is put into them they should be thoroughly washed with a bottle brush and hot soap-suds and then placed for twenty minutes in boiling water.

What sort of nipples should be used?

Only simple straight nipples which slip over the neck of the bottle. Those with a rubber or glass tube are too complicated and very difficult to keep clean. Nipples made of black rubber are to be preferred. The hole in the nipple should not be so large that the milk will run in a stream, but just large enough for it to drop rapidly when the bottle with the nipple attached is inverted.

How should nipples be cared for?

New nipples should be boiled for five minutes; but it is unnecessary to repeat this every day as they soon become so soft as to be almost useless. After using, nipples should be carefully rinsed in cold water and kept in a covered glass containing a solution of borax or boric acid. At least once a day they should be turned wrong side out and thoroughly washed with soap and water.

What sort of cotton should be used?

The refined non-absorbent cotton is rather better for stoppering bottles, but the ordinary absorbent cotton will answer every purpose.

Which is better, the Bunsen burner or the alcohol lamp?

If there is gas in the house, the Bunsen burner is greatly to be preferred, being cheaper, simpler, and much safer than the alcohol lamp. If the lamp is used, it should stand upon a table covered with a plate of zinc or tin, or upon a large tin tray. The French pattern of alcohol lamp is the best.

Give the directions for preparing the food according to any of the above formulas.

The nurse's hands, bottles, tables, and all utensils should be scrupulously clean. First dissolve the milk sugar in boiling water, filtering if necessary. Then add the milk and cream and lime-water, mixing the whole in a pitcher. A sufficient quantity of food for twenty-four hours is always to be prepared at one time. This is then divided into the number of feedings required for the day, each feeding being put in a separate bottle, and the bottle stoppered with cotton. The bottles should then be cooled rapidly by standing, first in tepid then in cold water, and afterward placed in an ice chest. If the milk is to be pasteurized or sterilized, this should precede the cooling.