Sterilising baby bottles

My health visitor told me I could stop sterilising when my daughter was 10 months old and we use formula

I'll keep sterilising until she's 12 months old.

Planning to sterilise until 12m old

Im doing 12 months. If formula is still used after the 12 months to do a gradual fade out. Does sterilising still need to happen? Or is it fine as their guts are more developed?

I haven’t and until baby is transitioned onto cows milk fully at 1 (formula fed) I will still sterilise the bottles (even though NHS says you don’t need to). Formula has more bacteria than breast milk but advice even for breast milk is to sterilise until 12 months. NHS website on “sterilising baby bottles”: The advice about how to clean your baby's feeding equipment applies to all of the equipment, and whether you are using expressed breast milk or formula milk.

@Charlotte NHS says you can just stop at 12 months 🤷‍♀️ I wrote my comment before I’d seen your comment. Ill continue to sterilise until mine is weaned onto cows milk fully which I hope won’t be too long after 1 as I don’t know i find it wild that all of a sudden clocks strikes 12 on their birthday and they can do all these things they couldn’t hours before 😅 especially considering they say formula in particular can carry bacteria x

@Amy I was looking online after I wrote my comment. And I think it’s more because their guts are still developing until 12 months. So I think washing in warm soapy water should be fine. But yes it’s odd. It’s like at 6 months they can have tap water. Switch on! 😂 It’s likely with things like this that their guts are developed earlier but covering all areas and saying safe to do until 12 months.

I’ve stopped since he turned 10 months and I’m formula feeding just cleaning and rinsing x

@Charlotte and in america they only sterilise until 3 months old 😅 but im sure the millions of baby’s over there are all fine! I’m too much of a worrier 😂

@Amy I think do whatever feels right for you. Personally I can not wait to not have to sterilise things 😂 One less thing to do.

For breast milk I believe it I'd 6 months and then you can just washing hot soapy water because breast milk does have microbes in it that are antibacterial. Formula you're meant to do it until you stop using formula, which is expected until 1. But that's because there can be bacteria present in formula that can potentially build up in the bottle when not sterilised. But by a year their immune system should cope. Half the time they'll be trying to eat things with way more bacteria on them anyways I still sterilise after every use even though we use breast milk. I will stop probably at a year when I start giving it in a beaker rather then a bottle.

I will continue to sterilise whilst using formula as there can be bacteria present x

@Helen good point! My LO put her mouth round the handle on the Asda trolley before 🫠

I think we stopped at 7 months .

We stopped around 7-8months old and she’s been fine not sick once, she’s nearly 11months now 😊