Great article until I read the part about sterilising.. please update your info!
Babies should not be weaned until 6months old and not before!
And breast milk is sterile so there is not need to sterilise products that have been in contact with breast milk! This is only for formula milk as it has live bacteria.
Thanks so much for your nice comments about the article. We definitely take your point about babies not being weaned onto solid food until 6 months old, and all our articles about weaning are very clear that this is the official Department of Health guideline.
However, we do know that there are some parents who wean their babies a few weeks earlier than 6 months, either because they feel their baby is ready or because they have been advised to wean early by a medical expert (if, for example, their baby was born prematurely).
For that reason and especially because there are some foods you should NOT offer to a baby under 6 months we do include in our articles advice for those who wean earlier than 6 months.
On the issue of sterilisation of products that have been in contact with breastmilk: while breastmilk contains lots of anti-infective properties, it is possible for ‘outside' bacteria to be transferred into it during expressing or when it's stored, so it’s always wise to sterilise containers used for expressed breastmilk.
Thanks for sharing this one to us! This is a great source of information for those mothers that is planning to start weaning their toddlers. All these things of babies seems so commonly use by people but there is a fact that these things are all those baby items that mothers need to know to before weaning their little ones.
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Babies should not be weaned until 6months old and not before!
And breast milk is sterile so there is not need to sterilise products that have been in contact with breast milk! This is only for formula milk as it has live bacteria.
Hi Shannon1,
Thanks so much for your nice comments about the article. We definitely take your point about babies not being weaned onto solid food until 6 months old, and all our articles about weaning are very clear that this is the official Department of Health guideline.
However, we do know that there are some parents who wean their babies a few weeks earlier than 6 months, either because they feel their baby is ready or because they have been advised to wean early by a medical expert (if, for example, their baby was born prematurely).
For that reason and especially because there are some foods you should NOT offer to a baby under 6 months we do include in our articles advice for those who wean earlier than 6 months.
On the issue of sterilisation of products that have been in contact with breastmilk: while breastmilk contains lots of anti-infective properties, it is possible for ‘outside' bacteria to be transferred into it during expressing or when it's stored, so it’s always wise to sterilise containers used for expressed breastmilk.