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A nourishing homemade baby formula using safe, whole ingredients. This recipe was developed and tested by Dr. Mary Enig, a PhD Nutritionist and originally published in Nourishing Traditions cookbook in 1996. It was formulated to match breastmilk as closely as possible and is also suitable for infants. Source: Weston A. Price Foundation
There is no doubt that breastfeeding your baby is the best option for the child’s long-term health and development. Human breastmilk from a well-nourished mother is the perfect food for baby. However, in circumstances where the child is adopted or the Mother finds herself unable to breastfeed, formula feeding becomes necessary. In those cases, homemade baby formula is best.
Using a baby formula recipe that closely matches the nutritional profile of breastmilk is a far better choice than even organic baby formula from the health food store. More on this below.
Note: Donor programs are widely available for human breastmilk. But, the diets of the donor mothers are unknown and most likely nutritionally insufficient. In addition, breastmilk banks pasteurize the donated breastmilk which destroys much of the nutritional benefit. Unless you are fortunate to have a trusted and direct donor milk source in your community, avoid this option!
Dangers of Commercial Formula
Commercial formulas are always a poor choice for a number of reasons. First of all, formula manufacturers line the cans with the chemical BPA. This substance disrupts hormone development and is a probable contributor to early puberty in girls, and ADHD, urogenital abnormalities, and other ills in boys.
The European Food Safety Authority found that canned commercial formula is a significant source of BPA for infants, exposing the child to 13mcg of BPA per kg of body weight per day! BPA-free formula cans are no better. The chemical BPS is typically used instead which is just as dangerous.
Beware that manufacturers pack even organic commercial formula like Earth’s Best in BPA cans. Worse, they use organic brown rice syrup as the primary sweetener which is known to be frequently contaminated with arsenic.
In addition, all commercial milk formulas are processed at extremely high temperatures which violently denature the fragile milk proteins, render them allergenic, and add carcinogens to the final product. Soy infant formula is the worst. Obscenely high processing temperatures not only denature the proteins but large levels of phytic acid in soy block mineral absorption by the infant. Moreover, soy-based plant estrogens disrupt the hormonal development of the baby!
It seems that for the concerned Mother who is unable to breastfeed, learning how to make baby formula at home with safe, pure ingredients is the most prudent way to go!
Why Make Homemade Formula Even if You Are Breastfeeding
In the video below, I show you how to make your own safe, healthy raw milk homemade formula for your baby.
The recipe I follow was originally published in the cookbook Nourishing Traditions in 1996 and developed by Dr. Mary Enig.
Even though I breastfed each of my children for at least 2 years, I made this exact formula for my own children when I was away for the day or the evening as pumping was not an option that worked well for me.
I even used this homemade formula for an entire day once when I had some dental work done and was advised to pump and discard for 24 hours.
As a result, even successfully breastfeeding Moms can use this wonderful homemade formula as a supplement when necessary to their own nutrient-dense breastmilk!
It is advised that even breastfeeding Mothers have the ingredients for this formula on hand for an emergency. If Mom is sick or otherwise unable to nurse, Dad can step in and make this safe alternative until Mom is back on her feet. It takes a few days to a week to gather all the ingredients together to make this formula, which is why I advise having them on hand at all times.
Homemade Most Nutritious
The image below lists the reasons why it is worth it nutritionally to make formula yourself for your precious baby!
You can order all of the required ingredients for the homemade baby formula in one package from this reputable, vetted source.
Moms who have successfully used this formula feeding your children, please post about your experience in the comments section to encourage those who are considering it and need some Mom to Mom encouragement!
Where to Source Quality Milk
The most widely available grass-fed milk around the world is from cows. This is usually the most budget-friendly and easily sourced milk for this recipe for homemade formula.
If only goat milk is available in your area, this recipe for goat milk baby formula can be used instead. When using milk from ewes, please refer to the linked article for an adjusted recipe; one of the benefits of sheep milk is that it is higher in healthy fats than either goat or cow milk.
Camel milk formula is another option that is a particularly digestible form of dairy and growing in popularity around the world.
Alternatively, you can use low temp (vat) pasteurized, non-homogenized whole milk cultured with a piima or kefir starter. Then substitute the piima milk or kefir for the raw milk portion of the formula recipe. Cold-pressed raw milk also must be cultured before using it as it contains no probiotics.
Do NOT use ultrapasteurized (UHT) milk even if organic as it is too highly processed and extremely allergenic!
It is also best to avoid all types of powdered milk for this recipe. The factory process of making milk powder reduces nutrition considerably and denatures it, which makes it more likely baby will have an allergic reaction.
Dairy Allergy Option
If all types of dairy prove unsuitable for your baby, make this nondairy baby formula recipe instead. It uses a base of homemade bone broth as a substitute for milk. It is important not to utilize a plant-based or otherwise vegan baby formula recipe.
Avoid buying bone broth to make the dairy-free formula. Make it yourself! Manufacturers of commercial bone broth, even if authentic, may water down the end product. This is apparent if it does not gel when chilled in the refrigerator.
Many brands have toxic packaging issues as well. If you must buy it in a pinch, see my shopping guide page for vetted brands that are safe.
Homemade Baby Formula Recipe (for infants too)
A nourishing baby formula recipe you can make at home with safe, whole ingredients developed and tested by a PhD nutritionist to match breastmilk as closely as possible. Also suitable for infants.
Ingredients
- 2 cups raw cow milk OR organic whole milk yogurt
- 1 7/8 cups filtered water
- 1/4 cup liquid whey
- 4 Tbl lactose
- 1/4 tsp Bifidobacterium infantis powder
- 2-4 Tbl raw or pasteurized cream
- 1/2 tsp cod liver oil unflavored
- 1/4 tsp butter oil unflavored
- 1 tsp sunflower oil preferably organic
- 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil preferably organic
- 2 tsp virgin coconut oil preferably organic
- 2 tsp nutritional yeast
- 2 tsp gelatin
- 1/4 tsp acerola powder
Instructions
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Fill a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup with filtered water and remove 2 TBL (this will give you 1 7/8 cup water).
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Pour about half the water into a pan and turn burner on medium.
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Add the gelatin and lactose and let dissolve, stirring occasionally.
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When gelatin and lactose are dissolved, remove pan from heat and add the rest of the water to cool.
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Stir in the coconut oil and butter oil until melted.
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Put remaining ingredients in a glass blender.
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Add the water mixture and blend for about 3 seconds.
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Place formula in glass baby bottles or a glass jar and refrigerate.
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Before giving to baby, warm glass bottle in a pan of hot water or a bottle warmer. NEVER microwave baby bottles!
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
If using raw cow milk from holstein cows, use 4 Tbl of extra cream (otherwise use 2 Tbl extra cream).
If choosing to make this homemade formula with camel milk, be sure to include 4 Tbl extra cream as camel milk is lower in cream than cow milk.
Do not use high oleic sunflower oil. Use only the brand recommended in the ingredients list which is cold pressed, organic, unrefined, and low oleic.
*Do NOT use powdered whey from the store as it is denatured. Avoid whey from making cheese as it will curdle the formula.
*Do not substitute pasteurized or powdered milk as these are heavily processed, denatured and allergenic foods.
*Do NOT use ultrapasteurized (UHT) cream. It is highly allergenic. Raw or pasteurized cream is acceptable.
*Do NOT use fish oil or krill oil instead of high vitamin cod liver oil as they do not contain any Vitamin D and very little to no Vitamin A.
Collagen powder may be substituted for the gelatin in a pinch (more on peptides in baby formula in this article).
If you are wondering where is the iron in homemade baby formula, this article provides an explanation.
If baby experiences constipation using this formula, try adding 1 tsp of molasses to each batch. This should help move things along.
How to Transition to DIY Formula
Once you’ve viewed the video, gathered the ingredients, and made your first batch, how do you feed it to your baby for the first time?
It is important not to switch all at once as this can cause gas, excessive spit-up, or an uncomfortable change in diaper habits such as constipation or overly loose stools.
Start by giving your baby three-quarters of the old formula blended with one-quarter of the homemade. Try this ratio for a day or two and see how your infant responds.
If no digestive upset or major change in diaper habits occurs, increase the amount to a 50-50 blend of old formula to homemade. Observe for another day or two as before.
If no major issues, increase once again to three-quarters homemade formula to one-quarter old formula. If baby does well on this blend for a third time, you are ready to fully transition to the homemade formula.
At any time during the transition, symptoms of intolerance emerge, back up to the previous successful blend ratio and stay there for a day or two before attempting to increase once again.
Homemade Formula FAQ
Weston Price Foundation
Feeding an Adopted Baby
Traveling Tips with Baby Formula Made at Home
Iron in Baby Formula
Collagen Peptides instead of Gelatin for Homemade Formula?
Hi Sarah, I livve in El Salvador and am having difficulty finding pure cream. Here they let it sour and a lot of times add things to the cream. I wad able to get plain cream, but they still soured it despite my telling them that I wanted it fresh. Is it okay for my baby to put the soured cream in the formula? Or should I add more oils instead? If so, how much?
Also, my baby seems to be peeing less with this formula, is that normal? She was constipated and I had to give her a suppository and since then, she has pooped several times, but that should wear off. Could the yeast cause constipation?
Sarah, I was wondering if you could give advice on how to get around the hospital using formula after the baby is born. We are adopting and want to stay with the baby after he is born and bring in this formula. Do you think this might not be possible or can I make a request to allow us to provide his formula?
Thank you so much for all your help!
I haven’t adopted a baby so don’t really know.
Here is now it happened with us….
Our son is adopted and we had care of him for just an hour old. I would have loved to use the homemade formula, but unfortunately there were two problems: 1. I was in another state and was unable to make it and 2. I did not have 24 hour care of him. We left at 9pm and were back at 9 am the next morning. So, unless you have 24 hour care of him, I would not recomment switching back and forth from the commercial formula to the homemade formual as baby will not like it! Our poor little guy did not like the Enfamil at all, but I continued it until we got back to our state and then made homemade. At 6 weeks he swtiched and he went from being cranky and not sleeping through thenight to happy and sleeping through the night. You would have to talk to the hospital. I am guessing that they will not let you. A lot of doctors are not tolerant of the homemade idea. Good luck!
Debbie, Thank you so much for your response. We will have guardianship of the baby before he is born and will be able to stay in the hospital with him and our home is not far from the hospital. I did a search for a natural pediatrician and found one, so I am going to call and talk with her to see if this will be possible. If not then I guess we can just hope he will not be in the hospital very long.
Just made this formula for the first time last night. Initially we were making the bone broth formula because our little one had been on lactose free formula for the past couple months (due to health issues my milk dried up) but that one was really labor intensive, and worried me some (there can be great variance in batches and one person commented there their son had a bad reaction to too much vitamin a in it), so we decided to see if this one would fly. I followed the recipe exactly and didn’t have any issues as others have seemed to have. That said, I know that all of these products can vary from batch to batch/brand to brand so perhaps that’s why, or maybe it is just that you need to really follow the recipe exactly? Just trying to make sure no one gets scared off from this because it really is very easy to make especially compared to the bone broth formula. I’m sure that even with that one you can get a system down but I definitely prefer this recipe if at all possible. Anyway, one example of how it could get messed up is I ran the blender a little longer than she stated and part of my formula had started turning foamy. Hello! I should have remembered there’s cream in it and I don’t want to make butter or whipped cream! 🙂 Most of it was still fine though. I did notice that after refrigerating over night the top of each bottle (I portioned it out right after mixing) had a solid mass on top. I began warming the bottle gently in hot water and it seemed it wasn’t helping but by the time the milk was very slightly warm (I think you need to be careful not to heat it too harshly or to make it too hot) it was completely smooth and liquid. So far my little one loves it and hasn’t had any rashes break out! No stomach issues or spitting up either but hopefully that will continue as he’s only had 2 or 3 bottles so far. Time will tell! Very appreciative of this recipe though! I always felt so bad giving my little guy store formula. While I know breast is best, I definitely do feel in our situation that with this he’s still getting wonderful nutrition from live food. No nasty chemicals! 🙂
By the way, I used whey from store-bought yogurt because our raw milk still hasn’t separated enough. I think it’s also interesting to note that I don’t have access to raw cream right now so I used Kalona brand from the store and it seems he’s fine with it even though it’s low-temp pasteurized and he has an issue with dairy normally.
Well, it’s been almost 2 weeks now on this formula and I’m sooo pleased with it! I feel so good giving it to him and he hasn’t had any issues lately even though store-bought dairy formula would bother him. Even the lactose free would cause him to have eczema off and on. Initially he got pretty constipated on this one but I omitted the nutritional yeast after learning it wasn’t completely necessary using cow milk and that has really helped. I never really felt comfortable with that ingredient anyway. It seems the least natural and there’s lots of msg talk surrounding it. Anyway, now his face is free of eczema. Just waiting to see if it will clear up on its own on his legs. Also, I saw the video on giving babies a soft boiled egg yolk as a first food so I started doing that. The first day, which I also started putting 4T of cream in the formula, he slept 9 hours straight which he’s never done! He hasn’t done that every night since but off and on his sleep is much better. Hopefully that will continue to improve over time.
Thank you, Rachael! Your comments are very encouraging!
WE WERE SO THANKFUL FOR THIS TUTORIAL AND RECIPE! Our twin boys were premature and had a host of difficulties including failure to thrive. This recipe was a godsend to providing them with excellent nutrition and us with a formula option whose ingredients list didn’t make us sick.
We did have quite a bit of troubleshooting at the beginning. I’ll try to post my tips below.
The biggest problems we had with the homemade formula were constipation and ‘curdling’. The first is a problem for our kids with milk-based formula in general. The ‘curdling’ occurs with the homemade stuff when in basically makes a chunk of cheese in the middle of the bottle when it’s heated. I’ll give you my step-by-step process since by following it exactly we consistently make the recipe with no issues.
I was making 4-5 batches per day. You really do have to mix it fresh each day; the longest it’s kept for me without having issues is 48 hours. It seems intimidating but it’s really not bad once you get in a groove.
For each batch, I do the following:
– put the milk, cream, cod liver oil, sunflower oil, olive oil, optional butter oil, and probiotic powder in a 1/2 gallon mason jar
– fill a pint mason jar with water just below the 1 cup line and add the nutritional yeast and acerola (I only use 1 tsp. yeast because I found that decreased the constipation)
– fill a second mason jar with the same amount of water and add the lactose, gelatin, and coconut oil
1. Pour the lactose/gelatin/coconut oil mixture into a small saucepan and heat until everything has dissolved; whisking often
2. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the nutritional yeast/acerola mixture into the pan; whisking until all is dissolved
3. Pour everything from the saucepan into the 1/2 gallon mason jar and blend using an immersion blender (or shake hard with a lid on)
4. Fill glass bottles to the desired amount and ADD 1 teaspoon of whey for every 3 ounces of formula; DO NOT SHAKE so the whey remains on top; refrigerate
5. Store any extra formula in a sealed mason jar in the fridge
6. When a bottle is needed, remove from refrigerator WITHOUT SHAKING and heat in a pan of hot water (we heat the water just to boiling and then remove it from the heat; a 8-9 ounce bottle takes about 5 minutes to heat directly from the fridge)
7. Shake the bottle to mix in the whey and test the temperature on your wrist; ideally it will be slightly warm (to make everything flow well) but not hot (you don’t want to kill all the good bacteria)
8. Feed the baby!
The finished formula will look different often when you make it; sometimes its a solid clump due to the gelatin sometimes it separates into oils on top with chunky liquid on bottom. When we go to fill bottles with formula that’s been kept in a jar in the fridge, I usually have to blend it in the jar first using an immersion blender to be able to pour it into the bottles. I bought a basic Cusinart immersion blender off Amazon and LOVE it (~$30). Totally worth every penny in my opinion!
Also, we use glass bottles since they are being heated. Plastic (even BPA/whatever else free) leeches chemicals when heated. I LOVE the LifeFactory ones (bought on Amazon) but many places carry Dr. Brown which are more affordable.
Hope this all helps someone else! It really isn’t bad to do once you try a few times, and it’s rewarding to know your baby is getting a great formula!
NOTE: we couldn’t use the Green Pastures cod liver oil because the fermentation caused issues for all of us so I found Carlson labs to be the second best; if I was making it now I would use the new extra-virgin cod liver oil found here (http://evclo.com/)
Also, for those who are interested, our mainstream pediatrician approved this recipe for our boys (who were failure to thrive). We didn’t discuss the source of the milk, but she was fine with the mix of ingredients providing the correct nutrients. She is against alternate forms of milk and would only approve a cow’s milk-based formula.
My milk is curdling when I heat it up …I’m I leaving my liquid whey out to long (raw cow milk whey)?
Are you using cheese whey? That will curdle the formula.
I’m making whey from Stonyfield organic whole fat plain yogurt & my formula is curdling when warmed as well. What should I do?
-Desperate for this to work =/
Sorry, me again. Could it be something other than the whey causing the curdling when heated? The formula looks smooth & gelatinous when refrigerated. Thank you for your help!
-Traci =)
The formula should be gently warmed to body temperature … not heated. This will curdle it.
Traci, sometimes my formula would curdle, but not often. When it hapoened, i was usually able to use the formula anyway, after warming it and shaking it to c I mbine. I used whey from raw milk in my formula. I think too much heat can do it. To be honest there is an i nknown factor as i was never sure why mine curdled when it did. I would watch the heat, make sure you are putting the right amount o f gelatin and not too much. If you can, you may want to try a different whey. Whey from raw milk is the most economical, if you can get it. Try an experiment. Make a batch without whey and see if it curdles. You can figure out whether it o s the whey o r something else causing the problem that way. It will be fine to feed that batch to baby too, you dont have to waste it. Or maybe make it without whey, and try pouring the whey in at the last minute after it is off the heat and cooled. I used this formula for about 2 years and it was a miracle for us I n more than one way. I have been a follower of the weston a price way of nutrition ever since. I am going to take a chance and put my email here if you need anymore help, please let me know. [email protected]
Don’t use boiling temperature heat. Hot but not too hot. This seemed to work better for me.
Sarah, I have a question. How do you know how much of the daily vitamin intake to put in this homemade formula? We all know that DHA and Folic Acid and many other vitamins and minerals are necessary in brain development, how do you add this to the formula? Yes breast is best but I too understand that if unable you need a better alternative.
Emma-
We had HORRIBLE trouble with this, but I’ve got lots of tips! Email me at [email protected] and I’ll send you my list of things to try. I’ll try to post them here also but the formatting may not work.
I have been making this recipe successfully…but every now and theno the milk will curdle …..did I let my liquid whey sit out to long fermenting? Suggestions!
Hi Sarah, Thank you for all the information you have provided! I have just finished breastfeeding my one year old son. I currently give him raw organic cows milk to drink. He suffers from eczema so I am looking at ways to heal his gut. I do not believe that dairy is the cause of his eczema but we are still trying to determine what it is. Which formula would you recommend for him or should I just continue with the plain raw milk? He has a very big appetite and has been eating solids since 4 months and he is walking. Thanks 🙂
I am a full time working mom who exclusively breastfed/expressed until my daughter was nine months old and my body no longer responded to the pump. I still breastfeed when I am at home, but my daughter gets this formula while I am at work. I have always loathed the thought of giving her commercial formula, knowing that it is poisonous junk food, but out of desperation late one night, I fixed her a bottle of brand X. She had one sip and refused it. I never tried commercial formula again, and immediately visited my health food store to round up the ingredients for this formula. My daughter loves this recipe! She happily chugs it down. Thank you so much for offering an alternative to breastfeeding that I can actually feel good about!
Can you use Plain and Simple powdered whey to make this formula?
No, as stated in the post, powdered whey CANNOT be substituted for any reason. No brand is good. It must be raw, unprocessed whey as demonstrated in the video.