When can you stop sterilising bottles?

[2cats2many]

My sister says that when they start chewing on toys at playgroup, grabbing handfuls of cat fur then sticking their hands in their mouths, basically being mobile, you might as well forget it and just chuck them in the dishwasher as the rest of their environment is far from sterile.

What does everyone else think? When did you stop sterilising yours?

I think it's 6 months, by this age they are putting all sorts in their mouths so it doesn't really matter.

I'm fairly sure there's research that's been done to show that you don't need to sterilise at all, just give them a good clean but I may be very wrong here.

@ fluffybunny- I think I saw a thread on here once about not needing to sterilise at all too.

My ds is 5 months old and I'm constantly picking cat hairs out of his mouth, rescuing him from being fed all kinds of stuff by his big sister, etc.

I'm wondering if I should save myself the bother and just dishwash them.

I thought you needed to continue sterilising bottles used for milk as long as you use them, because milk uniquely (?) can grow some pretty nasty bacteria very fast, and teats tend to have nooks that are hard to clean in any other way. So it's not so much to do with keeping them in a sterile environment overall - which obviously is impossible! I could be wrong though...

There are loads of threads on here about this. One consensus, which I've followed since DS was born, is that as long as you clean your bottles thoroughly in VERY hot soapy water (dishwasher does same) and make up your feeds properly using right temperature water etc then you do not need to sterilise anyway. At 6 months I'm certain you can stop.