Dishwashing Plastic???? Bottle Washing...

If you use bottles with disposable liners the formula is not coming in contact with the bottle, only the nipple, which you can hand wash.
Metal sippy cups are a good option instead of plastic.
Here is a link to an article which shows which manufactuers use BPA and which don't.
K.
http://zrecs.blogspot.com/2008/02/z-report-on-bpa-in-infa...

Dishwashing is fine, but DO NOT put them in the microwave. That cooks the plastic (doesn't clean it) and breaks down the phalates or whatever the cancerous particles are in the plastic. Glass is way better, though more expensive and not so easy to find.

Good luck!

i think the dishwasher is less alarming than the microwave when it comes to plastic leaching.
khairete
S.

I have always thrown everything in the dishwasher. With 2 small kids, it would be improbable for me to handwash everything, plus I don't think I would get them as clean as the dishwasher does. I am afraid of anything glass because everything gets thrown and several of my plates have broken. I will say that some of the sippy cups still smell of milk out of the dishwasher, so the plastic is soaking some things in, which is a little concerning, but other than that, I have decided not to worry about it. You have to pick your battles.

Hello, I have heard about this also. My mother in law is a nurse who just recently received her masters and she has been researching this for a while. She told us to get rid of all of our reusable gladware (& similar products) because they have linked it to cancer. We started using glass pyrex only and I stopped using my daughters sippy cups in the dishwasher. I also don't heat her dinner up in plastic anymore. It is harder to do, and I don't feel like her stuff gets clean enough just hand washing it. I saw on the today show that using disposable sippy cups are better because the type of plastic they use is different. You can buy like 7 of the small ones for around $3 and they are dishwasher safe, but I still throw them out after a few washes. Good luck!

Hi T.. If you have the Born free bottles, you should be fine putting them in the dishwasher since they're not made with BPA (I think that's the name of the chemical we're all trying to avoid lately). My understanding is that the colored plastic doesn't contain BPA either b/c it's a different number of plastic, so you should be O.K. putting them in the dishwasher as well.

Take Care, R.

I love the platex bottles with the disposable liners. They keep the air out of the bottles and when the baby is done, you just throw the liners away. Simple, easy and clean and very portable. Bring 1 bottle and a bunch of liners and you're set for an outing, clean bottle every time. I'm sure it costs a little more, but it was worth it to me. No gas and not insanesly hard bottle washing. You can't go wrong.

I'm buying glass bottle for my new little one due in May. We used Dr. Browns' but have bought the evenflos- someone told us they are pretty compatable. I just figure why take the chance if not needed? We'll put the glass ones in the dishwasher and use a green dishwasher liquid.

My father-in-law is a top plastics chemist with J&J. His rule of thumb is, the more cloudy the plastic is, the safer it is. He avoids microwaving plastic entirely.

Personally, I would skip the high heat of sterilization (boiling or microwave or whatever). There should be nothing in/on the bottles except ordinary household bacteria, and those are things that your child's immune system will benefit from practicing on. Studies suggest that the reaason that farm children and children in multi-child families are healthier than only kids and indoor kids is that the exposure farm kids and siblings get to trace amounts of dirt and gunk is actually good for them.

My son went through his whole childhood with nothing sterilized, ever, because I was too tired or ill to bother, include my pumping equipment . . . no harm done. Ineed, he was rarely ill in spite of being in daycare.

We just ordered some sippy's from here:
http://www.thesoftlanding.com/sasicuac.html
they also have glass bottles with some kind of liner so they don't break as easily, I guess. If my little one was bottle fed I would be switching to glass.

I have always used the dishwasher on plastic bottles. Microwaving them is worse. There was a study that showed microwaving plastics like plastic wrap can cause cancer. With all the lead recalls today, I would make sure i got something American made or Glass. I won't let my kids drink out of any plastic container unless it was made in the US. I am not taking any chances.

T.,

While my daughter was young, three months and younger I use regular plastic bottles that I hand washed and I boiled hot water in a big pot to sterilized them. Once she was older and I started to go back to school and she had to go to sitters, I decided to use disposal bottles because this was a lot cleaner and easier on me as well as the sitter. As far as the sippy cups and all of the other utensils used by the baby. I simply put them in the dishwasher alone without any other non-baby dishes. My daughter never really got sick besides her seasonal allergies even though she was around other children.

Personally, I still worry about several different compound that can be released by plastics when put under heat stress. While, not all plastics are the same color should not be an indicator of safety. One of the classes of chemicals that are "hormone-mimics" are those added to plastics to make them flexible,plasticizers like DEHA and others. Those effect the sexual organs of both men and women in various ways including cancer inducing. They can be present in colored plastics and will leach out. But just choosing hard plastics isn't enough either. that doesn't take into account PC (polycarbonates)which is used to make some hard plastics including baby bottles, they may be marked s PC or recycling catagory #7- but not all catagory 7 (a 'miscellanious' catagory) bottles contain PC and some may be safe). The alternative to hard plastics are polyethylene, polypropylene or polyamide, but here you need to watch for plasticizers again.
If you do choose to worry about plastic safety sterilize by boiling water when you first use a new product and thereafter hand wash in warm/(or hot to the hand)soapy water after that and rinse well. Better yet glass bottles are available for babies.
FYI if you were worried about the BPA (bis phenol A- toxic chemical found in low levels in baby formula) scare a while back..it was found that while some plastic bottles do contain it, the primary source of contamination was the formula itself due to the lining of the metal cans it is stored in, less of an issue when dry formula versus liquid. You can probably surf the web to see which brands are more effected or contact the company you're using if you are using formula.
The summary- with any plastic each microwave and dish washing cycle accelerates it's breakdown increasing leaching of chemicals. To be conservative go with cleaning regularly not sterilizing regularly-healthy kids don't need it and it can work to their disadvantage for other reasons 'outside' chemical toxicity.

Yes, I have put the BPA free bottle in the dishwasher,they were fine.

I contacted Evenflo a while back about the make up of their products. All of their bottles and cups are made of polypropylene or polyethylene. Therefore, they do not contain PVC(the potentially harmful plastic). They can be dishwashered on the top shelf, including the valves (as long as you contain them in a caddy). I always put my son's bottles and now his sippy cups in the dishwasher. That saves me a lot of time and energy. Good luck with your kids.

Hi T.,

Had you thought about going back to glass bottles? Or do they even make glass bottles anymore?

If they don't make glass bottles anymore then plastic must be the only thing you can use.

Hope this helps. D.