Sterilise or not to sterilise?!

[pinkdaisy]

Hi,
I am about to start weaning my little boy, do I need to sterilise all of his feeding equipment like spoons, bowls etc!
Thanks Lisa x

Noooooooooooooooooo!

(Mind you, you don't strictly need spoons or bowls either )

I do but only cos I'm sterilising his bottles anyway so not much effort to chuck the other stuff in too. I don't think its necessary though..

I think I did it once, but then saw the state of his hands and thought better of it; obviously they were going into his mouth all the time!

i haven't sterilised anything since dd was 12 weeks, it all goes in the dishwasher...

I've never sterilised anything, just wash in very hot soapy water and air dry. I'm living in the former soviet union where no-one's heard of sterilising, so suppose this encourages me.. I genuinely don't think it's necessary, specially not as much for breastmilk bottles..

Food isn't sterile. Don't bother, waste of time.

nope. just wash stuff as normal.

When I first started weaning (at around 4-5 mths) I steralised everything and it drove me potty doing it. By about 6 mths I twigged that just about every grubby object in the house had been in his little mouth and we hadn't had any probs so I gave up (what a relief). I just make sure that when I wash his stuff up I do it in hot/clean water ie not at the end of the washing up run. One friend told me she gave up on steralising everything when she found her child chewing the wheels of the pram one day (and lived to tell the tail!)

My book says sterilise everything up to seven months but ds is six months and i gave up streilising bowls ages ago - just do bottles and spoons.. hate sterilising!

And DS has everything in his mouth anyway so see little point in it for bowls etc.

god no

I was worrying about this recently so looked on the government's health website and it recommends sterilising to 12 months and using boiled water for formula til then too. I think milk bacteria are meant to be quite bad. BUT what happens on their first birthday? Do they wake up and suddenly become able to cope with bacteria? Am seeing HV Tues, will ask then

never sterilised any feeding equipment (dishwasher is more than good enough imo)

DD1 was 5mo and i was taking her spotlessly clean bottles from the dishwasher, perfectly sterilising them, lifting them out with tongs etc... then i looked down to see her wriggling across the floor, licking/eating anything. At that point the steriliser went into the cupboard for DD2 (i sterilised until 15 weeks...)

neither have ever had a tummy bug. DD1 is now 3 and at nursery...

Just reread your post, sorry I thought you were talking about bottles. I don't do any feeding equipment and am sure a good wash is fine