I think the other thing to keep in mind is that formula in the UK is different than formula in the US. At least form what I can piece together from various things I have read. It seems that formula in the US can be made with room temperature water and the water doesn't need to be boiled?
Anyway, the regulations here in the UK are that you need to use freshly boiled water (only boiled once as the mineral content changes with repeated boiling) that has been left to cool for 30 minutes. When we were on Aptamil I actually rang them to discuss this "30 minute" thing and they told me that the government regulations are that bottles have to be made fresh and so they need to tell you to let the water cool for 30 minutes because it's assumed you will have a baby crying from hunger close by and if the water hasn't cooled for 30 minutes you may scald your infant if the water hasn't been left to cool. BUT, any longer than 30 minutes and the water will be too cool for the formula to dissolve. You can use it earlier than 30 minutes but make sure baby is not close by. My own experience is that after 30 minutes, water is still scalding hot! I did notice the times we let it cool for an hourish, the formula was bitty and not dissolved very well.
When we moved to soy formula, the formula would NOT dissolve. I rang SMA. They told me the same thing as Aptamil, but she said that soy formula is more heat sensitive and needs hotter water, but that she legally was not allowed to tell me to make it with freshly boiled water.
Next, we moved to Nutramigen. The tin says room temperature water. Have tried it with just boiled, have tried cooled for 30 minutes, have tried cooled for an hour - the formula won't dissolve. Room temp, and the formula dissolves instantly.
As for sterilising, your real question! DH and I were total sticklers for sterile bottles at first. Would run the steriliser and then realise I needed a dummy from inside it as soon as it was done. If I opened the lid to get that dummy out but we weren't ready to make bottles *right then*, well, I ran the steriliser again.
Now that DS is older (8 months now, but I'd say about 6 months-ish) I developed the attitude that the bottles had been sterilised, but they didn't need to be sterile. IYKWIM. He puts everything into his mouth that hasn't been sterilised, so why bother. As long as the bottles have been run through the steriliser to kill off the remaining bacteria that washing them hasn't killed, then that's fine for me. Although, I usually don't leave bottles sitting in for longer than a few hours before I decide to give it another run. When I knew that was going to happen, often I took the bottles out and capped them so that they were still clean and dust wasn't going to get into them via the steam vent in the steriliser lid, then open them up when I had my water ready.
I also do the naughty government prohibited pre-making of bottles. I make three up at about 8pm and those are for DS's 7am bkfst, 11am lunch and 3pm afternoon bottle. Wash and run four bottles in the steriliser at about 4pm, take one out at 530pm to make his bedtime bottle and leave the other three in there until 8pm, when I make them up for the next day. Mind you, this has gotten a bit easier since we dropped down to 4 bottles a day, but when we still had the DF, it was the same but at 530 I had to make two bottles.
In the end, I really do think it's more about coming up with a system that works best for you and falls within some sort of realistic hygiene guidelines than attempting to follow each and every rule!
HTH
