I guess the Title pretty much says it all. We’re expecting a baby in November and I hope to do a combination of bottle-feeding and breast-feeding.
Do I need to buy a special bottle sterilizer, or go the old-fashioned route of putting the bottles and nipples in boiling water on the stove for 15 minutes, or is my dishwasher sufficient?
Thoughts?
With our first kid we boiled everything all the time. With our second we don’t have time for all that business, and it all goes in the dishwasher. I haven’t been able to tell a difference. I’d boil new stuff from the store one time. I don’t know what the medical pro’s say, I just know we haven’t had any issues.
The medical pro in our family (Dr. Dad, pediatrician) says “Those who boil are those who tend not to have to. Those that don’t are the ones that should be.” This based on 40 years of practise.
Sterilize the new things. I wouldn’t boil for 15 minutes, I’d just place in boiling water and turn off the water and leave for 5 minutes or so. You can sterilize in the dishwasher just as well as in boiling water.
Thanks … I sterilize the nipples too right? It seems like all that heat would make them crack.
God I’m going to be a dummy mommy for a while - so much to learn!!!
Most parents I have known with their first baby will sterilize everything in boiling water as you mention. After the first, they find the dishwasher works just fine, and eventually they get to the point of picking the bottle up off the floor and rinsing it under the hot water tap. After all, the kid spends most of his waking hours picking stuff up off the floor and stuffing it in his mouth anyway.
Our baby just hit one year old. We’ve been using these types of bags since we brought her home from the hospital. In the US we picked them up at Target stores. Each bag lasts about 20-25 uses and there are 5 to a packet. They will sterilize breast pumps, tubes, etc., in about a minute and thirty seconds. Plus the portability, if we travel we make sure the room has a microwave and we just take along one bag, which takes up no more space than a dish towel.
Though the Butlerette (now 4 months old) is breast fed, we do occasionally use a bottle to feed her (with previously pumped breast milk).
We don’t sterilize the bottles. We figure since she’s already eating off a non-sterile breast (the wife objects to boiling her nipples 
), puts anything she gets her hands on in her mouth (including her hands), rolls around on the carpet, quilt, bed, and “play mat”, she’s already getting her USRDA of germs, and a few more aren’t going to kill her.
All the feeding equipment goes into the dishwasher, and that’s good enough for us, though we keep a relatively clean home.
-Butler
Just get silicone nipples - they should be able to handle heat up to 500 degrees or so, so don’t worry about boiling them.
Honestly, I found it a lot easier to just breastfeed and not use many bottles. They are a pain in the butt. Personally, I was much more concerned about germs when she was under 3 months old, and we had latch problems anyway, so I just didn’t use bottles till later, when she had a stronger immune system. My mom bought me a microwave baby bottle sterilizer, and I used it once, then decided it definitely wasn’t worth all the trouble. After that, we just washed bottles in the dishwasher.
Ditto on those. We use them for baby bottles and a couple of weeks ago my oldest son had to use a nebulizer for a few days, and we sterilized the thingys from that as well.
All it really is is a big ziploc bag with a hole near the zip for letting off steam/pouring out the water afterwards. You could probably rig one up.
I wouldn’t bother, unless baby has some sort of health issue (immune suppression or whatever) that would make him/her more susceptible to everyday sorts of germs. Or, I guess, if you had questions about the safety of your water supply :eek:
We did boil the bottles I used for pumping, when Dweezil was a baby. What can I say, I was a first-time mom?
With Moon Unit, I did when she was a newborn, because she was a preemie and I figured best not to take chances. However when I went back to work and was pumping, I didn’t usually bother.
If I had a third kid, I guess I’d wind up rinsing the bottles every few days with swamp water and hope for the best 
If you do the nipples (the bottle nipples that is!) in the dishwasher, do check 'em carefully after washing. Little bits of crud that got washed off your dishes can get lodged in them.
I never sterilized anything and we didn’t even have a dishwasher when we had the second baby. I just washed everything carefully in hot water and made sure it was rinsed and dried thoroughly.
If you use a dishwasher, there are little baskets you can buy to hold the nipple and bottle caps during the cycle.
If you drew your water from the town well, or from The River Ganges, I’d say yes, you should sterilize your bottles. But chances are your water in BC is pretty clean. I was like a lot of the other mothers:
1st child: sterlize everything in boiling water on the stove
2nd child: running it under warm water will do
3rd child: clean it by spitting on it.
So true in this house. Kid was born last year, and we sterilized everything to start. Though now I still handwash everything instead of using the dishwasher, if I’m tired and there isn’t enough bottles/nipples, I just rinse them under hot water and re-use them. Kid gets plenty of germs from daycare as it is.
The bag thing is just as easy as putting them in the dishwasher, IMHO, so why not?
I have three kids. The first one, we boiled everything, but he went to daycare, and caught every ear infection, etc. under the sun. He still catches everything that floats in under the transom.
The second kid, we did the dishwasher thing. He didn’t go to daycare, though, and I don’t think he’s ever had anything but a cold.
The third kid and we’re using the bag, and again no daycare. She’s 6 months old, so we haven’t had much experience with her yet, but she hasn’t had anything so far.
So, I think probably exposure to other kids can be the more prevalent cause of disease, but if sterilizing is as easy as throwing a bag in the microwave, it’s probably a good idea.
Unless your water supply is compromised somehow (well water, high levels of bacteria, water main break on a city water supply, etc.), then why should you need to sterilize anything? We don’t sterilize our cups, silverware, etc. Wash with soap and water (or put into a dishwasher, which actually gets the dishes pretty darn hot–ever taken a ceramic dish straight from the dishwasher?), and things should be fine.
Besides, in the next year or so, your baby will be picking items off the floor and putting them straight into his/her mouth…
We used the dishwasher exclusively - never boiled anything. The little baskets that go in the dishwasher to hold the nipples and caps are great. You should probably have two (and about twice as many bottles as you think you need) unless you like doing dishes constantly. The baskets will serve you for years. Even as you move into sippy cups you still need the baskets for the valves.
One caveat about the dishwasher though, be somewhat careful about what else is in the washer with the bottles. As Mama Zappa said above, it is possible to get crud in the nipples, and I found that the bottles and nipples seemed to pick up grease if there was a lot on the other dishes. For example, one time spaghetti sauce left a film over the bottles and nipples. No real problem though - just washed them again and learned to thoroughly rinse the dishes before putting them in with the bottles.
Don’t worry about being a first time parent. Mrs. Nrd and I had ZERO experience with kids before we brought Thing 1 home. Seriously, neither of us had little siblings, little cousins, little neighbor kids - nothing. I honestly think that I had held an infant maybe three times prior to Thing 1 coming home. Despite that, both Thing 1 and now Thing 2 have survived almost 4 and 2 1/2 years respectively. Although if they keep up the latest game I caught them at, climbing to the top of their 3-drawer dresser and jumping off into their bean bag, I’m not sure how long they’ll last.
Just wanted to jump in and reinforce that pumping supplies should be sterilized, but (unless your doctor says otherwise), don’t need to be sterilized after every use. One doctor told us once a day, another told us once every three days, and only the lactation nurse who sold us those sterilization bags said it had to be done after every pumping. And **WhyBaby **was a micropremie, so the doctors were really skittish about infection with her.
All the doctors agreed that the bottles and nipples don’t need to be sterilized, just washed in hot soapy water or put in the dishwasher. EXCEPT that the nipples should be boiled before the first use - for 5 minutes, according to my package from Playtex.
The only time I sterilize bottles and nipples is when camping - then they get boiled in water for 5 minutes every evening. I figure camping is enough of a cleanliness challenge, and since I’m boiling the water to do dishes anyway, it can serve to boil the baby’s things first.
Um, are you sure you’re using them right?