Sterilising and overthinking

And when you touch it with your hands, are they sterile after that? 😉 don’t worry about it too much. I never rinsed after sterilising, just wiped it with fresh dry cloth if they were still wet, if they dried in the machine, I would use them as they were and it was always fine x

You are sterilising harmful bacteria away eg from formula, you are not needing the equipment to be sterile like in a hospital if that makes sense! You dont even need to sterilise items which only contact breastmilk if you dont want to- my midwife explained that even the milk bank which accepts donor breastmilk for the tiniest sickest babies does not asked for things to be sterilised. I wash my hand pump in hot soapy water once a day only and sterilise it maybe once a week. I do sterilise by bottles because I am doing formula/breastmilk mixed bottles once or twice a day. But having them drying on a clean towel is totally fine

How are you sterilising? If you're using cold water and Milton tablets I know it says on the packet to rinse the solution out before use, which can be done with cooled boiled water since that's sterile. I would normally then just shake out the excess water and if there's a few drops left then it's not going to cause any harm because that water is sterile anyway. We use cold water sterilising in the NICU and that's the process we follow. The same would apply to steam sterilising though which is what I do at home, once it's finished the water droplets left over are still sterile so shaking out the excess and using without drying is fine ☺️