How long do people ACTUALLY sterilise bottles for?

[Cherry85]

I know nhs advice is 12 months but in the US its three months and some countries only before first use or if immuno-compromised.

Interested how long people actually do it and if its just once daily or before every use

I personally did a year but ONLY because I had a UV bottle sanitizer and I kept them in there and it was easy enough just to switch it on had I of gone down the cold water etc route probably about a week 😆

We did 6 months fully sterilised. Milton bucket so its just living in there.

Now we just sterilise the teats as thats easiest place to keep them and the bottles go straight through the dishwasher and into the cupboard.

6 months exactly and not a second longer. She licked so much cat/floor/people it felt quite pointless.

@Alexadidzammomarryjackie I think thats my thinking too as his older brother is bringing everything under the sun home from nursery 🤣🤣

Last time I sterilised all the bottles, dummies etc then realised I had never once done any toys or teethers and wondered why I bothered

I stopped once she was crawling and licking the floor! Around 7 months I think it was.

Same! No point sterilising a bottle when they pick stuff up and lick everything!

It’s not the bottles but what is in them. Formula milk is higher risk so sterilising is recommended.

We sterilised the bottles for as long as they had bottles, so over a year. We had the steam steriliser that sat on the side so it was just the habit of using them, washing them up and putting them away in there and pushing the button. It gave some reassurance as well and I used it for things like their teething toys. However, they had plenty of exposure to germs in other circumstances, such as nursery, play places, being outside a lot and having pets. It was just the bottles that I knew where definitely going in their mouths.

Baby is 8 months and I'm still sterilising, it's easy for me to wash them and pop them in the stream steriliser, the bottles then live there til I use them. I'll probably keep doing that until I hate the sight of the steriliser, or sort out my cupboards to find a place to store the bottles, currently very low on my priorities list!

We sterilised bottles until DS stopped drinking formula, whenever that was. I thought the risk was any formula that was still inside the bottle rather than the bottle itself. I never sterilised any toys and wouldn’t have bothered with breast milk or regular milk.

My little one is 5, he's still on formula milks (tube fed), I still sterilise his feed bottles!

I think we only did it for 2-3 months. The midwife said just hot soapy water was fine. We were in Canada though. Didn't sterlise at all with 2nd born but she was breastfed.

Still doing it at 11 months. DS is breastfed though and only takes one bottle of formula a day, so it’s never been any big fuss for us to wash and shove it in steam steriliser. Force of habit! I’ll probably continue until we stop formula and move onto cows milk.

I did it for 6 months. I felt it was much more important that the formula was sterilised and made properly than the bottles once we got to the eating restaurant food and licking the floor while crawling stage.