sterilising toys

[aroha77]

Just wondering how often I should be aiming to sterilise LO's teething toys etc which are always ending up on the floor, in other children's mouths etc?
Thanks!

Never. Really. Rinse under the hot tap every now and again if you're really bothered. But honestly, not even that.

There is a sliding scale which runs from "every 10 minutes" for a precious firstborn down to "Just dust it off" for a neglected subsequent child. :)

I remember scalding those kind of toys constantly....however luckily she didn't play with them for long.

How old is your DC?

Sterilising toys is a faff, and won't really make a difference once your DC is self propelling. Just keeping them generally clean is enough.

www.google.co.uk/#q=hygiene+hypothesis

We sterilise bottles to get rid of milk residue which could contain milky germs and makes babies very poorly.

Teething toys do not tend to contain milk and so will be fine with a dunk in hot soapy water every now and then. I think I only cleaned mine if they went on the floor outside.

It also depends how old the baby is. Once sitting and touching the floor there's little point I think.

I sterilised my pfb dd1's teething toys in the steriliser - and it MELTED them!!!

Just a wash in hot, soapy water is fine

I sterilised my pfb dd1's teething toys in the steriliser - and it MELTED them!!

As above poster found out they are generally not suitable for steam sterilising anyway. You could get Milton cold water sterilising tablets if your really bothered about sterilising but hot washing up water would be fine.

As for frequency, I only did mine when I thought about them or if they were dropped outside.

I used to run my steam cleaner over toys if they went on the floor. Until mine was more mobile, then I didn't see the point.

Yep, my dh melted one of DS' s plastic teethers by putting it in the steriliser as well . I concur with other posters - just a quick wipe every now and again is all I do for most toys.

You don't need to. Just clean them in hot, soapy water.

You only need to sterilise bottles that have formula in them.

Thanks everyone!