No sterilizing of newborn bottles

[brockleybelle]

My MIL never sterilized my husband's or his sister's - just washed well and rinsed with boiled water. When we took DS to visit last Sept (Lithuania) when he was 3 months old she thought it was odd we were still sterilizing (I insisted and, credit to her, she would sterilize them for us).

Her daughter, my dh's sister, is expecting a baby and it came up in conversation with MIL that they won't be sterilizing baby's bottles.

I'm curious if anyone on here doesn't bother to sterilize a newborn's bottles and your experiences. At the moment I believe it's far too risky and not a risk worth taking.

I became very lax about it after about 6 months
i once met a woman who RREALLY carried on till a year! i was stunnned - as if before midnight its not safe then after midnight its ok!

I don't have kids yet, but this is something I do think about. I think I would sterilise for a newborn but maybe drop it at 6 months, I don't know.

IIRC there is a poster on here who was advised NOT to sterilize for her DC who (I think) had been born early.
I may be wrong though. Somebody with a better memory will come along.
I b/fed but if we ever used bottles I'd wash and rince.

I dropped it coming up to 6 months as by that stage he was putting everything in his mouth, so I couldn't see the point.
Sterilizing up to a year is ridiculous!??

I b/fed as well, and stuck my pump through the dishwasher.

I do know that the advice for making up formula has changed, though, so not sure if sterilizing bottles is now part of that or not??

In hospitals here in Italy we're told it is entirely unnecessary and you need only wash in warm soapy water and air dry (ie not dry off with a manky teatowel). Most microbiologists also believe it's totally unnecessary.

I've never sterilised a thing in DD's life and she's never been ill, but then I appreciate she only ever had a few bottles in the grand scheme of things.

my health visitor told me to always sterilise bottles until 12m, but not to worry about weaning equip, was also advised to start weaning at 16weeks,o why sterelise bottles but no feeding equip when lo is 4 months old???

my lo is now nearly 9 months, he only has 1 bottle at bedtime,and i havent been sterelising it (for the last week or so) am so glad im not the only one!!

I think I put the bottles in the dishwasher to wash them for the first three months.

I breastfed for nine months but had mixed feeding from about two months - so we had breastmilk and expressed breastmilk and also bottles of formula the odd time also.

I was told by the midwife that expressed breastmilk could be perfect in the fridge for two days, and in the door of the fridge for a day, so absolutely no need to decant it into a fresh bottle.

I think I stopped being very careful about 'sterile conditions' when DD could suck her hands - and especially when she could pick something up (and pop it into her mouth)!

You know, in France they don't boil the water for formula from birth - and they don't warm it up : and they don't sterilise bottles either. Seems to work!

If you do put bottles etc. in the dishwasher, avoid rinse aid as it's really quite toxic and far too chemical for delicate newborns. I won't use rinse aid even now.

I started putting tap water (warmed in micro) from 5 months, I think. I read on the internet that tap water is perfectly safe for anyone to drink, and that includes babies! I think it was an American government site (might be wrong there). Never had any problems with doing that. It certainly made things a little easier.

I never sterlised anything ever for DS2 (a colleague was shocked at this only today.

He is the healthiest child and never had eczema (unlike the other 2) tho that may be coincidence of course).

Mind you I did bf him till 13 mo and had a year off work so he never had a bottle.

imo (which may be completely wrong) the difference between bottles and weaning bowls/spoons etc is that you store milk in the former. so I applied this logic and stopped sterlising bottles when I started weaning - but never stored milk in them for any period of time. I also ended using an American brand of teat (playtex) which are made of rubber - and can't be sterilised.

I sterilised for over a year....just to be safe lol

iirc dishwashers in the US are much hotter than in UK so they don't need to sterlise bottles and teats if using a dishwasher. Hatwoman is right, milk is the reason you need to sterilise.

I never understood why sterilisation was deemed the holy grail of newborn feeding hygiene when we stick our non-sterile breasts in their mouths.

Someone once explained that milk can get stuck in the grooves around the necks of the bottles and bacteria can grow there. Surely the solution here is to wash them up better?

In any case when plastic is exposed to high (and freezing) temperatures it releases micro particles, which enter the food and do our bodies no good. So I shan't be sterilising for DC2.

MrsMerryHenry, I thought the same thing about breastfeeding.
Re plastic bottles - companies are now selling bottles that don't contain the nasty chemicals that leak out on contact with heat. Another recommendation is to buy glass bottles as these can be heated with no danger.

When DS was a few weeks old he woke in the night for a feed, as they do . DH had forgotten to switch on the sterilizer so we had no bottles! I was livid. I spent 15 minutes preparing the bottle in the middle of the night with a screaming, very hungry baby. Looking back I should have just given it a good wash, but I thought you absolutely had to sterilize and if I didn't he'd get a nasty stomach bug. I remember reading that bottle-fed babies are 5 times more likely to get gastroenteritis than bf babies. I do think, however, that with future babies I won't be quite so strict (ideally I won't need bottles at all for the first months - I wasn't able to bf this time ).