rivka: (family)
rivka ([personal profile] rivka) wrote2005-09-21 05:53 am
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At least they don't have any yeast on them.

Alex has thrush, which is a minor and relatively common-in-babies yeast infection in the mouth. She's had it a lot. So we've got the drill down. When we're treating for yeast, we sterilize her bottle nipples after each use, and her pacifier every time we treat her mouth.

This morning I washed up bottles while boiling water fot my tea. I put the nipples and her most recent pacifier in a little pan of water and set them over a flame to boil. I poured my tea and fixed a bowl of cereal. I ate my breakfast while Alex played on the floor. We played some together. I went upstairs and put some files I needed for work on a thumb drive, and set up the work laptop on the couch. I fixed Alex a bottle. Here's what I did not do: maintain any recollection of the pot boiling on the stove.

Suddenly I heard a couple of pops and smelled something sort of electrical. I looked anxiously at the laptop, but it seemed fine. The smell continued.

"Oh my God!" I set Alex down on the floor and ran into the kitchen. Sure enough, the pan had boiled dry and her pacifier had begun to melt. The nipples had taken on a weird cloudy cast. I turned off the stove and ran cold water into the pan.

Accidents happen, right? Except that this is, conservatively, the third time Michael or I have ruined nipples and pacifiers while trying to sterilize them. I always laughed at the people who paid money for a separate sterilizer - why didn't they just use boiling water? - but now I'm beginning to get the idea.

[identity profile] pecunium.livejournal.com 2005-09-22 03:52 am (UTC)(link)
The point of the double-boiler is that, because the heat is transferred by way of steam, the temperature never gets above about 200F.

For practical purposes, that's probably enough, but it takes a long time to tranfer that much energy to the amount of water needed to make the nipples sterile. She'd probably have to refill the bottom at least twice, and the time spent reheating the lower water would lead to a slower response time, esp. if she forgot, and it boiled dry.

TK