Safe to stop sterilising?

[Sookeh]

DS is 8 months now and is having less milk as I've been weaning him.
He's crawling now and gumming everything he can find so I don't see the point.
Do you think I should carry on?

I didn't keep it on past finding dd2 licking the sole of dd1's shoe....
I haven't managed to kill either of them yet :o

Yes.

You don't actually ever need to sterilise anything, as long as the bottles are washed thoroughly.

It has nothing to do with anything else they might eat, lick or whatever. The bacteria in milk multiplies really quickly so needs to be washed off the bottles, teats properly - no matter how old they are.

I'd carry on if you are making up milk in advance.

Otherwise, just bung them in the dishwasher.

Agree with magnum - if you're making up bottles to keep in the fridge carry on, otherwise its fine to stop

yes, agree with above posters. sterilising isn't even done in other countries.

most important is to make up the feed correctly (with hot water as per instructions) and to properly clean bottles and teats off any milk residue (breeding ground for bacteria), which can be easily done with hot water and soap and bottle brush or dishwasher.

I stopped sterilising at 6 months. It was a steam steriliser, and as I put them in the dishwasher, not sure how or whether it was different anyway.
We make bottles in advance (stored for about 8 hrs max) using hot water.

I stopped at 6 months - dd3 is 6.5 months, just clean them in hot soapy water.

i stopped at 6 months with ds1. didn't sterilise at all with ds2 and dd but did put anything they'd used in the dishwasher along with everything else, which i believe has the same effect.

I think it is important to treat milk differently to other food-ie you need to get everything spotlessly clean. But sterilising is actually less important than making sure things are super clean because if there's no milk on the bottle, bacteria won't grow so sterilising not needed.