Sterile Surroundings, or Not

A lot of us who have had kids are familiar with the feeling that the new baby that has just arrived at home should be in “sterile” surroundings, void of all bacteria and viruses that the world can offer.

As in all cases of life there is no real black and white.

Even with “baby surrounding sterility” at a maximum the same Mom and Dad (who goes according to Mom) have different “sterility surrounding” standards for the first, second and third baby.

The first one you sterilize every pacifier that falls on the floor or heaven forbid, touches any surface that doesn’t belong somehow to the baby. Then number two comes along. Now we just wash the pacifier under the tap. With number three, we sometimes just put the pacifier in our own “very sterile mouth” and lick off the millions of bad germs and replace with our good ones..

So, what this tells us is that there is a middle path and we don’t need to go to extremes.

I speak from some new experiences. Not as a Dad, but as a Grandad. Our daughter with her first baby went to the extreme on the sterile issue. With her second one, the middle was reached.

Our daughter in law was right in the beginning on the other side of the sterile thing. But she is doing, in my eyes, most of the right things that you should. Keeping it logical. Our granddaughter was at horse shows before her first month birthday.

Don’t get me wrong. Hygiene is of utmost importance.  The newborn must be in a clean environment. That environment can be the crib, the stroller or someone holding the baby.

Just don’t need to “bubble-baby it”. Not at all.  It means making sure that the direct contact with the baby is clean and that you are not near any sick or germ infested areas or people.

Clean means wash your hands before picking him or her up.

It also means sterilizing bottles that will hold any food that the baby feeds on.  The food goes into the baby.

The following is just an insight as to how we may see clean.

A couple of months ago they showed a TV program where they checked how clean a house really is. They checked “clean” sterile  houses and not so sterile “minded” households. The “sterile” houses were those where the inhabitants would use bleach all the time. You may think your kitchen is clean, but it is not really germ free. It’s actually full of germs. Some bad ones. The sink, the sponges, the tops of the cabinets, the handle of the fridge. All germ full.  Even had germs in bleach cleaned homes. And you don’t clean with bleach all the time.

Actually, the floor had a lot less germs in most houses.

So, my personal view is. Keep it clean. Sterilize what is necessary and don’t extreme it in any way.

As in most situations, extreme in any direction, anytime, is not wise.