Bottle Cleaning

Dear Helen

We have now started on gruel and consequently we are heavy users of bottles (by heavy I mean up to 5 bottles a day).

We have read many different advices regarding the cleaning of the bottles, and I would very much like to have one simple advice:

We have a sterilizer to be used in the microwave oven, which is one of the smartest inventions ever made..., however, we would like to know whether we should wash the bottles with soap first + a thorough rinsing, whether it is okay that all visible residuals are rinsed off during the sterilization process before next use.

And now that we are at it, we also put the dummies in the sterilizer. Lately, we have rinsed the dummies first with some salt to remove the milk residuals, and then they are rinsed before being put into the sterilizer.

Is this to overkill it? Could we manage by doing less?