should I still be sterilising?

[geegeeleigh]

my dd is now 9 months and is ff do I still need to be sterilising her bottles or is it safe not to now?

Yes, you are supposed to sterilise bottles, teats, anything that comes into contact with the formula until a year old.

But I don't. LO is 8 months old.

I stopped at six months when dd started liking the cat

licking

I believe the WHO says to sterilise until 6m although I may be wrong on that. It is far better for the child to stop of 6m and let them build up their immunity. No wonder so many children are sickly these day!!! A hot soapy wash is all that is needed.

I stopped sterilising about 6 months I think. I'm not keen on the whole germ-phobic thing, and think it's important to have some contact for immunity.

As soon as LO finishes his bottle, I rinse it out straight away using cold water. Then it's washed with hot soapy water.

Current NHS advice is to sterilise bottles/teats used to FF until baby is 1. The reason for this is that formula milk can breed some really quite nasty and tough bacteria which don't get killed by washing bottles/teats in hot, soapy water only. Personally I am sticking to it - I just don't want to risk DS getting seriously ill (even though the chances are small). Only 3 months to go now...

Yes, formula can grow some nasty bugs. Chances are low, but given that the NHS doesn't recommend sterilising bottles for expressed breast milk after 6 months, there has to be something in it.

Goldplated, I nearly wet my laughing reading your post, thank you.

I use separate bottles for formula and water. Ds is 5 months. Do I have to sterilise the bottles for water only?

No. But I would start trying to use a sippy cup for water - they pick.it up pretty quickly. Poundland do the free flow tommee tippee ones for a pound.

I carried on sterilising until my DTs were 1 at which time we switched to cows milk so no longer needed (and just working on moving them off bottles completely)

I stopped sterilising at six months. You could start trying an open cup at mealtimes. (Easier to clean than a bottle - no nooks and crannies). Babycup ones are great as they're made for baby hands.

Hot soapy water is v good and lots of things are also dishwasher friendly. I found it a great relief when I stopped using the steriliser!

Thanks for the answers to my add-on question. Going to have a look at baby cup now.

My Dr advised us to stop at 10 months.

But we still used cold water sterilising until 1 year.

I've a relative who works with premature babies etc in USA apparently there's no culture of sterilising bottles in the US, she said they use water as hot as you can bare it & washing up liquid. Which I thought was interesting. Tho someone will probably come along & correct me!

Personally I stopped when dd started crawling (and therfore putting god knows what in her mouth) I just did as above, until we got a dish washer & then they went in there.