Sterilising baby stuff - when to stop?

kit

Hi there!

My daughter is almost 5 months. I started weaning her at 4 months (on the advise of HV due to her HUGE weight gain - she was eating 9 or 10 oz per feed).

I am currently sterilising all her bottles, spoons, food dishes. The dishes, ice cube trays etc that I use to make her food have boiling water tipped over them as I heard this is the best way to make sure they are safe.

My question is when can I stop worrying about this? I have been told that I need to keep sterilising her bottles for as long as she uses them due to them being hard to clean..... but what about the spoons, dishes etc?

Also, when can I stop using cooled boiled water to make her bottles with?

Oooohhh and well I'm here...... Can anyone give me advice on giving her lentils and suchlike? I have never used them before and when I went to buy some today there are loads of different types so I didnt bother to get any just in case there is some big difference!

Ok, think thats enough for now!
Thanks :beer:

KiT

Mado

If you have a dishwasher... I would say you can stop sterilizing soon. Basically it heats up above 60C which is "pasteurisation" temperature.
I don't think I ever sterilized the spoons and bowls. Just used clean ones from the dishwasher.

None of my 3 kids has been sick.... until starting nursery and getting in contact with other children!

Also food can start developing bacteria if it stands. So if you use it very soon after preparing it is fine.

When I had my last baby in Oz, the hospital wouldn't sterilise dummies. They just advised us to wash them and run them under the tap.
Looks like the advice now is Not tto clean, let them build their immune system.

bonnie_2

having had 3 children i wouldnt advice giving her lentils, stick to fruit,veg and rice etc lentils might upset her tummy they are hard to digest like sweetcorn.i stopped sterilising when they were crawling as they put everything in their mouthes then anyway.

Zziggi

i was told to use cooled boiled water for bottles and to sterilise bottles & weaning spoons/dishes until the child is 6 months. I did this religiously with my first baby. At 6 months i stopped and he was fine. With my second baby I sterilised up until weaning (was about 5 months with dd). I never sterilised her feeding spoons and bowls. She never came to any harm with it. I did use cooled boiled water up until about 6 months though. Bottles are easy enough to clean with a bottle brush. If you aren;t going to sterilise then i'd say just make sure you do clean your bottles, and especially the teats, well.

Ticklemouse

When they start to pick up stuff from the floor, then there's no point sterilizing everything. DS1 only had a few bottles but had dummies and I recall I stopped about 6 months. If the dummies were particularly yakky, I'd stick them in a cup of boiling water and micro them for a couple of minutes. DS2 was entirely breastfed and never used a dummy so never sterilized his cups, plates and spoons - just washed them in the DW. I let them pick food up off the floor (within reason) and my 2 are hardly ever ill

Maisie

many moons ago the Hv said to stop sterilising when the baby starts crawling and puts everything in their mouths.
I think that still stands.
Said the main thing also was to wash your hands frequently as more germs on hands than elsewhere.

Mado

Ticklemouse wrote:

. I let them pick food up off the floor (within reason) and my 2 are hardly ever ill

:rotfl:
My neighbour has this very good saying
"Food is safe from the floor for 15 seconds... after which the dog will have eaten it"

My kids ate all kind of food from under the table or things like an old crust of bread they put aside for later use under the cushion in the sofa.... and came to no harm and are very rarely sick.

kit

Thanks guys!

I think I am being a 'normal' paranoid first time mum. I went to a weaning class held by HV and all it focused on was things NOT to do as you may do long term damage to your child! At the end of it I didnt want to ever let her eat anything ever again :eek:

realistically tho, how come I, and you, are here alive and kicking if EVERYTHING can do so much damage?!

Gingham_Ribbon

I started giving my son solids at almost 6 months, by which time he was picking things up off the floor and putting them in his mouth so I never sterilised spoons, bowls etc and I never sterilised ice cube trays.

However, I think you need to be careful with bottles, particularly the nipples because milk quickly breeds bacteria, so it might be worth continuing to sterilise them for a while.

Tap water is fine from 6 months.

As for lentils, they are a great source of SO many important nutrients. My son loves them. Red lentils cook very quickly and get lovely and soft and mushy if you cook them for longer than you would normally. With pulses, it's important to remember to cook them until they're really soft to avoid wind. They certainly shouldn't do your baby any harm.

As she gets older, a great source of protein is to use the lentils as a pate on bread or toast. My son loves them cooked with grated carrot, onion and garlic. And thinks they're great with a little chilli powder.

It's best to use packets of dried lentils as they are quick to cook and tins of pretty much anything except fruit generally have far too much salt for little kidneys.

He's vegetarian for now and he is in the tallest 0.4 percentile and takes a size 7 and a half shoe at 19 months, so I guess the old pulses are doing okay by him!

Maisie

Well Kit if that is a picture of your baby she looks well and happy.......
and quite beautiful. So you must be doing the right things for her.

That's not a potty she's sitting on is it? Thought you might be potty training her as well?? Just joking...

atomicangel_2

Hi kit,

Lentils are a good source of protein in your baby's diet the best thing to do is to soak them overnight so they are quicker to cook and still retain the vitamins and minearals. I used to make my daughter carrot, celery, parsnip, sweet potatoe and lentil soup with just a bit of black pepaer no salt which i let it cool for about 30mins and then i would liquidise and then store it in clean glass baby food jars which then i would freeze until needed and then re heat (which i had saved from the hipp jars which she had eaten previuosly) The organix comapny who makes baby food if you ring them up they will send you a free baby mag which has recipes in and free vouchers i dont know the telephone number off hand but Im sure another mse probably does.