Sterilising... How long?

[GillLevey]

Can anyone tell me when I should stop sterilising bottles? My baby is 5 months old.

i stopped sterilising at that age but we put everything through the dishwasher so does the same thing really!

Yes, I think it was around 6 months for mine as by that age they start picking things up off the floor and putting in mouths anyway.

I believe the advice is when they are crawling. I left it till Bea was 8months as we were going on holiday and I didnt want to take all the stuff. We still stick the bottles through the dishwasher every now and again to make sure they have a really good clean.

HTH

Current advice is till they are 12 months old however I see this as impractical as by the time they are crawling they are shoving all sorts of things into their mouths. I therefore stopped sterelising when dd got to this stage. She is now 3 and has a really good imune system. Will do the same when dd2/ds arrives.

Mummuyhill 39/40

I stopped at 4 mnths, after reading other countries NEVER sterlise. They are putting rattles and everything in their mouths by then anyway. so I really didnt see the point.

Thanks for your advice. DD is almost crawling. She rolls about all over the floor and pulls herself along with her arms. She puts everything in her mouth. We used to put a clean towel down and then a big sheet but she still manages to get onto the carpet so it's a bit of a waste of time now.

I am interested in this thread as dd is now 4 mths and will be 6 mths when we go on hols...If we don't need to sterilise bottles while we are on hols what about dummies. Sorry to sound stupid but I take it we don't need to sterilise anything.???? Am I ok to just wash them out in soapy water..? Rinsed of course!

Oops, thought this was about contraception! Not that I'm thinking about such a drastic measure of course! Pity you can't buy DIY sterilisation kits isn't it?

But bottles, when dd was a baby the advice was 6 months, when ds was a baby the advice was a year. I did it up to 6 months for both which was pretty good going for me!

rtkanga's useful thread

The NHS book (Birth to Five) says 6 months.

For shhh, you could just pour boiling water from a kettle over the dummies. I would have felt happy with that.

My good friend works in the neonatal intensive care unit looking after premmies and really sick babies and they don't sterilise anything anymore . They use hot soapy water to clean everything!!! Their information is that we now over sterilise and are causing health problems by not exposing them to low level germs and building immunity.

mymama, I had heard that as well.Babies need some germs to build up their immune systems. Scary but suppose it has to be done.
I still want to continue to sterilise dd's stuff for the next 2 months but when we are on hols (she will be 6mths) emmatom's suggestion of boiling water for dummies sounds good. I think i would feel happier doing that than not all all.