Sterilising bottles

It is important to sterilise all feeding equipment regularly. Bottles should be cleaned and sterilised after each feed. This will reduce chances of any bacteria passing to your baby through contaminated bottles.

• Take bottle and teat apart and rinse them out

• Wash them in hot water with a weak detergent solution

• Use a brush to ensure that you’ve removed any deposits from the bottle

• Turn the teat inside out and check that the hole is not blocked

• Rinse in clean water

• Sterilise both bottles and teats

There are a number of ways that you can sterilise feeding equipment:

• Boiling, which is the simplest and cheapest method. Put the equipment into a large covered saucepan ensuring everything is immersed and there are no air pockets, bring to the boil, and boil for at least ten minutes. Leave the bottles in the water in a covered pan until you are ready to use them. Only use this pan for sterilising your equipment. Teats that are boiled regularly tend to become sticky, and may need replacing more often

• Sterilising tablets or fluid, which only additionally require cold water and a large container. Make sure that everything is completely immersed in the liquid and that there are no air bubbles left in the bottles. Takes about 30 minutes

• Steam sterilisers, where equipment is put into an electrical machine which creates enough steam to sterilise. Takes about ten minutes