Conference moira::parenting_v3

    I never sterilized anything for mine.  I have four perfectly healthy
    children.  I did, however, wash all dishes, including bottles and
    nipples in the dishwasher, which washes the dishes with water at a
    fairly high temperature.  Look around for a special rack that will hold
    the nipples and rings in the dishwasher in a good position.  You can
    get them at almost any store that sells baby items.
    

My daughter is 4.5 months old, and we stopped sterelizing the bottles at 4
months.  We still sterilize the nipples, but once or twice I forgot to do it.
Didn't seem to cause any problems.  By now, she is putting anything she can
get her hands on in her mouth anyways.

/Mario

    I think at about 4 mos, I asked our pediatrician when we could
    stop sterilizing.  He said it was fine to stop at that time,
    but since we didn't have a dishwasher, we should wash his 
    bottles, nipples etc..in water that was so hot we'd have to
    wear rubber gloves.
    
    Hope this helps.  YOu may be able to stop sooner, we just
    didn't ask sooner.
    
    Linda

According to the old saw:

	With your first child, you boil it for ten minutes

	With your second child, you rinse it with tap water

	With your third child, you wipe it with spit, or lick
	it clean.

(many smilies) 

Clay

	

    re: .4
    
    I thought that for the third child, you rubbed it clean on your
    pants leg.
    
    --bonnie

    Add us to those who never sterilized bottles & nipples. We bought one
    of those plastic nipple racks that go on the top rack of the dishwasher.
    We'd accumulate nipples, rings and disks in it, and would simply run
    them through whenever we had a full load of dishes. Nicholas seems none
    the worse for wear.
    
    Re: -.1
    
    Clay's absolutely right, although we progressed through all 3 stages 
    with our first and only child...;^) I'll never forget the time when I 
    took Nick to an appointment at the pedi at approx 4-5 mos. I was the
    only dad in the crowded waiting room, and when Nick dropped his bink
    onto the floor, I casually picked it up, popped it into my mouth to
    clean it, and gave it back to him....You would have though I had hit him 
    upside the head with a stick based on the reactions I got from the
    new mothers in the room! Most of the veteran mothers simply grinned...
    
    Freddie

    I sterilized them only when we brought them home new.  After that it
    was washing right along with the rest of the dishes.  My kids were
    healthy enough. 
    
    -sandy
    

I only sterilized Juli's bottles/pacifiers/nipples ONCE!, when they were
first bought.

Then it was:
	.  push in POWER BOOST button on dishwasher
	.  insert dirty bottles and components
	.  push ON button
	.  unload dishwasher

everything's sterilized  (or so I thought!) .. never had any problems
(I do think I went through nipples a lot quicker, but the time savings
was worth it.)

Dottie

PS:  I never "special" washed Juli's clothes, either ... in with our
     dirty clothes, add laundry detergent (and yes!, softener!) and
     Juli had no reactions, etc.

     I guess we were just lucky!

I used sterilizing tablets becasue the rubber lasted longer.  I mixed the 
formula for a day with boiled water.  My books said you only needed to 
sterilize if you were "keeping" the formula, not necessary if you used it up
right away.  From about 4-6 months my children went to regular milk with
some additions (some little bit of a powder).  Then I bought UHT milk (I've
never seen this in the states but I guess it is your equivalent of canned milk
but not condensed).  This milk is sterilised and keeps at room temperature
for months.  Then I didn't bother any longer.

I also used disposable bottles so I only had to wash nipples.  My first was
too small and sickly for me to want to take chances.

ccb

    I stopped the day I caught Stephen sucking on the wheel of his
    stroller.
    
    Kathy

    Add us to the "never" column, for all three of ours. And with the first
    one we didn't have a dishwasher.
    
    I'm from the upper end of a big family which is sort of like
    parent-training at an early age, so I had already dispensed with
    sterilizing bottles long before I had kids. I seem to recall that my
    wife tried it a couple of times, but I'm the prime kid-carer and she
    tired of it soon enough.
    
    Kit

    As a new Mom, I used to sterilize the cup components of my breast pump
    before pumping.... here I'd be at 2 a.m., Ryan already back to sleep
    and I'd be sterilizing in a pot of water before pumping. Finally I
    asked my doctor how long I should keep doing this - she looked at me
    like I had 3 heads! So, no more did I boil the breast pump cup.
    
    We did the nipples in boiling water until he moved to a cup (Magmag)
    with a nipple at 7-8 months.
    
    And, we continued to make formula with sterilized water til we put him
    on milk at 11 months, since my doctor said that water in the
    spring/early summer often has increased levels of chorophyl which can
    give a bit of intestinal discomfort to baby's stomach.
    
    

    I quit when I found Kat, about 7 months old, sharing her pacifier
    with the dog.  She'd hold it to him and let him lick it a time or
    two, then she'd stick it in her mouth and suck it, then she'd
    offer it to him again . . .
    
    --bonnie 

For my first, I sterilized everything until he was 4 mos. old.  There
after, I only sterilized the nipples, up until he didn't use them anymore
(at 15 mos.).

With my second, I just put everything in the dishwasher (bottles, nipples,
and rings). ***NOTE*** The dishwasher WILL sterilize things IF you use
the dry cycle (we normally switch off the dry cycle to conserve energy.)
It's the high heat from the dryer that kills all the germs (or so I read
in one of my baby books/magazines).  We'll probably discontinue using the
dry cycle when he is 4 mos. old.

� �ori �

   Never sterilized any bottles for any of my kids. (Of course
    I breast fed the oldest and didn't adopt the next youngest
    until 4 months and the next two at 7 months.) My granddaughter's
    bottles have never been sterilized either. They are all thriving.

    I think the sterilization craze came from a time in the early
    20th century when people were so terribly concerned about the
    high infant mortality rate from diarrhea. People began to
    totally *over* emphasize the need for cleanliness, so it 
    grew all out of proportion.

another never.  Elise got her first bottle (breastmilk) at about 5 weeks, and
we never sterilized anything.

I hand wash the bottles, nipples and formula container (that I mix it in), be
cause it isn't convenient to use the dishwasher.

She also shares with the dog, licks the floor, etc.  It's hopeless to try
and stop her...

    Only sterilized the bottle and nipples when first bought.  After that
    hand washed in hot water.  Result - 2 children - perfectly healthy.
    
    On another tangent, did anyone using a formula concentrate actually
    sterilize the water that you added?
    
    Tricia                                                       

    We never sterilized the water, we OCCASSIONALLY sterilized the nipples,
    and the bottles went through the dishwasher just cuz it was easier.  I
    figure they eat enough dirt by themselves - why should I kill myself
    trying to stop them??  AND ... I'm from the school of thought that if
    you take all the germs away from baby, baby never becomes immune to
    anything and gets sick more.  
    
    Patty
    
    p.s. UHT (Ultra-high-temp) milk is available in the states in those
    cardboard drink containers (yech!)

    Re:  .17
    We used powdered formula and never sterilized the water - per doctor's
    OK.  Never had a problem.
    
    I agree with .18 -keeping bottles and nipples clean is generally
    enough, as they will have to be exposed to germs eventually anyway.  Do
    the best you can, but sterilization seems unnecessary.
    
    ..... Mary

    With my first, I sterilized everything until he was
    4 months old.  Then only sterilized nipples until he
    turned 1 year old.  I also always sterilized the water that I
    used to make the formula.  I am doing the same thing with
    my second (8 months old) now.
    
    Wendy 
                            

    With my first I sterilized "everything".  Including the bottles,
    nipples, water, and yes the pacifiers.  I did this till she was
    approximately 5 months old.  Once she started sharing with the dog,
    and sucking on anything that would could near her face I said never
    again. 
    
    I know I will not go through this trouble again for my second. I will 
    just use the dishwasher.

    Re .0,
    Tobias never used a bottle (well, certainly less than a dozen
    times), and I can't recall his mother ever sterilizing her
    nipples before nursing him ;-)
    

    my mom had my sisters and I in the late 40's and early 50s when
    the sterilization movement was in full raging force.....
    
    she washed her nipples (!) each time she nursed my next younger
    sister, to prevent infection. the problem was she used boric
    acid, and that gave my sister a raging case of thrush!
    
    I'm proud of my mother that she managed to nurse at all, as a 
    college educated woman, wife of a professor, she must have had
    to over come a lot of negativve steriotypes to nurse back in the
    40s.
    
    Bonnie

Pat asked our pedi about sterilizing bottles, and she said it was totally 
unnecessary.  So Pat just washed Michael's bottles and rings in the dishwasher, 
and his nipples by hand in very, very hot soapy water.  She did sterilize 
the nipples once when they were new, though, as the manufacturer 
recommends.  We never had a problem, and Michael didn't have his first case 
of the sniffles till he was about (I think) 7 months old.

We did sterilize the water used to mix formula, till Pat found out the 
distilled water she was using was already sterile.  From then on, she used 
it right out of the bottle.

Steve

    
    RE: distilled water being sterile...
    
    You may want to doublecheck your facts....distilled water is not
    sterile just does not have any minerals....the reason I know this
    is way back when people used to make their own saline solution
    for contacts...there was some kind of living amoeba that was found
    in distilled water and ended up causing people to go blind....
    People thought distilled meant sterile...
                                             
    As a matter of fact, bottled water has more bacteria in it than
    tap water in most cases.  This is due to the fact it can sit
    in its container for months or even years and since it is not
    sterile can be badly contaminated....I saw this on a 20/20 episode.

    I never sterilized (boiled anything), I did ask this very question  of
    my pedi, she said as long as its washed in the dishwasher it is the
    same as sterilized.  I subsequently went to the bottles with plastic
    liners so the only thing needing to be washed throughly were the rings
    and nipples.
    
    As for boiling water to sterilize for formula, I was told to boil water
    *not* to sterilize it, but to make "dead" water out of it, this is a
    term used when water is boiled for 5 minutes (rapid, rolling boil) to
    eliminate, if I remember correctly, the oxygen that's in the water.
    
    To the scientists out there, please feel free to elaborate on this!
    
    Lyn

	Well, I'm not a scientist but I can conclusively say that the purpose 
of boiling water for formula is NOT to remove the oxygen from it.  

	If you remove oxygen from water all you have left is hydrogen.  (Oxygen 
is what the O stands for is H2O.)

	I have never heard anything from any source that suggested anything
other than the purpose of boiling the water is to kill the germs i.e. to 
sterlize it.

Tracey

    I think she means the free oxygen, the kind an aereator puts in,
    Tracey.  
    
    I had heard of boiling water and then allowing it to cool to get
    rid of the free oxygen so you get lovely clear ice cubes without
    that cloud of bubbles in the center, but I never heard of it in
    relation to baby formula.  I can't imagine why free oxygen would
    be a problem.
    
    --bonnie

    
    	If the water had been sterilized with chlorine or sulphur dioxide
    (much less likely), boiling would remove any left in solution. It would 
    also make the water taste 'flat'.
    
    		Ian G.

    Thank you for the clarification.  Maybe what I was calling Dead water
    is more properly referred to as "flat".  Like I said I wasn't sure.
    I was only sure that you boiled it for 5 minutes to do something to it. 
    I know from my experience with the ambulance that if you taste the
    sterilized water used for irrigation, it has a very different taste
    from tap water, to borrow a work from my son, Yuuuckkk!!
    It has a very "flat taste", like none at all, as a comparison it's like
    the taste you get when the nurse "allowed" you to suck on a piece of
    wet gauze during labor.
    
    Lyn