All About Bottlefeeding: Cleaning and Sterilizing
Keeping your baby bottles clean is incredibly important. In their early years, your baby's immune system is not yet ready to battle certain diseases and bacteria so it is best to kill all potentially harmful germs. Baby bottles and anything that is used to feed your baby should be cleaned and sterilized before use.
To do this, you will need bottle cleaning brushes, teat cleaning brushes, and sterilizing equipment. It is also useful to have a fast boil kettle, towels to dry the outside of bottles, and easy to clean cloths which can be used to mop up spills.
Steps for Cleaning and Sterilizing
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When cleaning your baby bottles, throw away any left over liquid in the bottle. Scrub the bottle with a bottle brush and scrub the teat with a teat brush in warm soapy water. After scrubbing, rinse both bottle and teat thoroughly with running tap water.
Things to Remember
It is often recommended that any remaining equipment left in the sterilizing container be re-sterilized. Again this is why it is best to sterilize before use. Unopened steam and microwave sterilizers will remain sterile for up to three hours, while bottles and teats that used cold water sterilization will remain sterile for up to twenty-four hours.
Finally, be sure to sterilize breast pumps and breast shells after every use. Check the instructions that come with these items to make sure you know how they can be sterilized. Some breast pumps cannot be boiled, for example. |
