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Do I really need to replace plastic bottles and bottle nipples for my second baby, or is it okay to reuse the ones I have from my first? Kids will be just under two years apart, so the supplies are not that old.
— Trying to Buy Everything I Need Before Tariffs Kick In …
There are basically two reasons that you might want to replace these bottles.
The first is whether you’ve stored these in any way that animals could have gotten into them. I realize this is gross! But often we store old baby stuff (clothes, bottles) in basements or attics. Those places sometimes have mice, and they can carry disease. If you open the box with the stored bottles and there are mouse droppings, please just throw them away. Yes, you could sterilize this away, but at this point, it is probably best to just toss them.
The second reason you might want to do this is because of microplastics. As plastic ages, it releases more microplastics. In principle, older bottles might release more microplastics than new ones, but at this point, it’s not clear whether this is an important consideration. The reality is, we have little concrete evidence on the relationship between plastic bottle age and the amount of plastic shedding. It may well be the case that a few years is not quantitatively important.
Overall, we also have relatively weak evidence on the importance of microplastics in health in general. There are still a lot of open questions. And the reality is that even if you are committed to avoiding microplastic exposure, the impact of replacing your two-year-old bottles with new bottles is probably very, very small.
Overall, I think you should be comfortable using the old bottles and nipples, except for the issue of mice. One note: remember nipple sizes differ, and your infant will need the smallest bottle nipples, which are probably not the last ones you used, so make sure you’ve got the right ones. I’m not saying I made this mistake, but I’m not saying I didn’t make it, either.
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So when the bottle companies say that for sanitation reasons you should replace nipples regularly, you are saying there is no evidence to support that?