when can you stop sterilising

[mrsfossil]

sorry if this has been asked 100 times before but when can you stop sterilisng. dd is 8 months next week and is being weaned is i still bf apart from 1 bottle of formula with dh at night. When can i stop sterilising this bottle.

Oh, I sterilised till a year but can't remember if it's because I was told too or just my usual paranoia!

I live in the UK but got friends in Spain with small babies and they have been adviced not to sterilise at all. Just to wash all the equipment with soap and water and rinse it properly.

I have to say that my DD is 4 months and I do sterilise her dummies and the odd bottle she uses of EBM. However she stats putting everything in her mouth already so I was wondering if it is really necessary to sterilise or just wash everything with soap and water. I really don't know what to do either so I would be very interested in knowing what other people do.

my dd started crawling at 6 and a half months and I think I continued to sterilise her bottles until 7 and a bit months and then realised what a waste of time it was as she was putting her hands in her mouth after crawling and picking up stuff to chew on. I just wash her bottles with hot soapy water.

I stop around 4-6 months, once they're eating anything and everything off the floor I take that as a sign they are ready to start building a healthy immune system. As long as everything is washed well with soap and hot water then sterilizing really isn't all that necessary. Society is way too anal about keeping everything germ free. IMHO. Hospitals should be sterile, yes, but homes should simply be clean.

With my PFB I used to sterilise everything, down to his spoons. With DS2 is sterilised for the first couple of weeks then stopped. I sterilised the pump for first use, then just used the dishwasher. We use bottles rarely; but these don't get sterilised either. He has never been ill and is 7 months.

I stopped around six months, once they started to crawl and chew on the dog's tail, I figured I was wasting my time sterilising dummies.

A lot of hospitals have stopped telling mum's to sterilise breast pump equipment as using hot soap and water to clean it was found to be just as effective, if not more effective in reducing the number of bacteria present in such equipment.

Hospitals don't have to be completely sterile, only theatre equipment should be, everything else just has to be clean too!

thanks thats a relief,its a bit of a faf and she does seem to lick everything she can so i surpose its a bit pointless to sterilise 1 bottle a day especially as it goes through the dishwasher.

Memory coming back - think I sterilised bottles longer than other stuff coz I'd heard/believed that milk produced lots of bacteria if not cleaned properly - didn't have a dishwasher.

never did just stuck it in the dishwasher

I was just talking with a Dutch kramzorg (I think that's what they are called, they are state provided maternity nurses that help families for the first 10 days after baby is born) and she said she now advises plain good old fashioned common sense LOL wash bottles etc well and observe good hygiene habits. They seem pretty hardy here in Holland. I have yet to find Purell or anti bac wipes!!!!!!