So my wife is breastfeeding our littlest one (6 mos), and ends up pumping every now and then- maybe once a day I’d guess. She uses the Medela line of supplies and accessories.
Now I know that sometimes silicone cooking implements have a certain greasiness after being in the dishwasher, so I’m not surprised by that at all, or that the bottle nipples might be a little greasy after being washed.
What has me befuddled is that if I open up the dishwasher while the dishes are washed and dried, but still pretty warm, the nipples will be clear as a bell and squeaky clean. But if they sit a few hours and cool down, they become cloudy and greasy.
Is the oil/grease somehow absorbing into a silicone nipple and then coming out with heat? Is there some chemical process going on? I haven’t found much on Google about this.
The best way to de-grease any plastic/ rubber/ silicone item is to rub undiluted dish washing liquid on it thoroughly and then rinse it off. At least in my experience that’s the only reliable way to get rid of the grease and oil that tends to adhere to hydrophobic substances like those.
Oh, sure. That works quite well. The thing I’m most curious about is that when the nipples are warm, they’re quite frictiony and there’s NO greasiness/oiliness about them, and as they cool, they get oilier.
I don’t really see that with the silicone spatulas and other things like that.
I’ve noticed the same thing (10 month old baby). If I wipe whatever it is dry, then the oiliness/cloudiness doesn’t come back. If I let it air-dry, it turns gross in a while. What I might guess is that there remains some oils held in the water droplets, and as the water evaporates the oil remains and spreads back out across the surface?
Good question, as I said I’ve noticed the same thing, but hadn’t really consciously thought about what might be going on.