When Can I Stop Sterilising My Baby's Bottles and Dummies?

Babies have delicate immune systems that are not yet fully developed, making them highly susceptible to illness and infection. Therefore we need to make sure we’re taking every precaution to keep them out of harm’s way. One of the most important things you can do is to ensure you clean and sterilise all feeding equipment and dummies.

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This is especially important in the first few months, but you might be wondering if you have to keep doing this beyond that?

Generally, it is recommended that you continue to thoroughly clean and sterilise their equipment until your baby is 12 months old.

Bottles and teats have creases and nooks where traces of milk or formula, so thoroughly cleaning them after each use with hot, soapy water and a bottle brush is important.

This cleaning will remove the old milk but will not remove germs and bacteria and so sterilising is key.

The three main ways to sterilise are:

• Boiling
• Steam (microwave)
• Chemical

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Don’t forget to always sterilise your baby’s dummies too – and make sure you don’t put them in your mouth to clean them (your mouth is actually packed full of bacteria FYI). Sterilise them regularly and don’t forget to inspect them for any damage or splits and replace them every four weeks.

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