question ref: cost of forumula

[miss meg]

I have a friend who is 11 weeks pregnant. As I am the only person she knows who has been pregnant in the last few years, she is asking me tons of questions. Now, she knows I bf'ed my children, but she wants to do a cost-comparison between bf and ff.

Could you give me an idea of what the weekly/monthly cost for ff'ing is? Including as the baby gets older and doesn't require as many feedings in a day.

Thank you so much in advance.

~Meg

[RLB]

For us, $12.50 a pound can of powder mix, probably three or four a month until six months of age, so about 50 bucks. Of course, that doesn't count the initial cost of bottles or the time cost of boiling water (or buying nursery water if you don't do that) and mixing. I should mention that we bought Parent's Choice Lactose Free for ds--he could not tolerate any formula with lactose or those fatty acids they put in now. The price for Target's brand of formula is similar. The price for name brand (Enfamil or Similac, Good Start) is much higher. In my experience, powder mix is the most cost efficient way to do formula vs. the ready-to-feed or formula concentrate. Past six months we probably used two pound cans of powdered mix so cost us about $25.

I did try breastfeeding for a short while--the cost of that, save the rental of a Medela machine I used to try and help a complicated problem was much cheaper. I really needed an LC and could not get one here without paying $20 an hour--it was too much. If she can get good advice, and a good rental price, I am willing to bet that it's still cheaper to bf as far as cost goes. I'd be interested to see what the time cost is for both, though.

[Debra]

We paid $30 for a canister of formula at Sam's Club (cheaper then anywhere else for 2x the powdered formula). This started at about 4 months old and we used a canister every 10 days to 2 weeks. Then there was the cost of water. We used our water purifier (reverse osmosis) for water, because I wasn't comfortable using tap water -- so she might want to calculated bottled water costs into there depending.

There was also the initial cost of bottles, cost of new nipples (from 1's to 2's), However, if you are pumping to feed while you are gone you pay this cost for both formula and BM so it is a wash.

For BFing we paid for the pump. About $350?? plus I am using it again this time. I had a $30 BFing class and a free BFing class with a consultant. I never needed any additional time with an LC.

[bonkabonka]

$100 a month on the regular formula
$125 a month for my 3rd who needed a lactose free version.

My kids went through one of the bigger canisters about once a week.

I only noticed a huge change around 10-12 months when they started needing less bottles. All of my kids were wearned from the bottle (and formula) between 12-15 months.

[Susan Michelle]

We paid $30 for a canister of formula at Sam's Club (cheaper then anywhere else for 2x the powdered formula). This started at about 4 months old and we used a canister every 10 days to 2 weeks. Then there was the cost of water. We used our water purifier (reverse osmosis) for water, because I wasn't comfortable using tap water -- so she might want to calculated bottled water costs into there depending.



Pretty close with this....$30 for the canister at Costco, about $.65 per gallon of bottled water. We go through a canister about every 8 days.

[Eliza's mom]

Being a new mom, I was also afraid of the cost of formula. I bf'd as long as I could which was 5 months. dd is now 7 1/2 months old. But I had to supplement w/formula for months anyway because of a low supply. My advice is to at least try breastfeeding. May or may not be for her. And get a membership at a wholesale club for cheaper formula!

[Jelly-Anne]

Well, my costs would be different since everything in Canada costs more :rolleyes:, but we were spending on average $125/month for regular powdered formula when DS was a baby from age 2 months until about age 10 months.

[PV'sTV]

Tell her to keep in mind that some formula is quite expensive depending on what the baby needs. Neither of my last two could handle the powder for some reason and we had to get either the concentrate or the ready to feed. Olivia is also lactose intolerant and had to have soy formula.

I didn't like bf'ing and was able to scrape up the $ to buy the formula we needed, but if money is a big issue bfing is much more cost effective. I wish I would have liked it.