8 ms·

People who argue that microwaves has/had no clear use have clearly not worshiped their microwave for sterilizing baby bottles in no time at 2am with a screaming

by Jun8 16y ago

People who argue that microwaves has/had no clear use have clearly not worshiped their microwave for sterilizing baby bottles in no time at 2am with a screaming baby at hand. Therein lies the interesting fact: The new, "in the middle" device may trigger new approaches and ways of life that may indispensable. The baby bottle sterilizer is an unexpected but vital byproduct of the microwave.

maguay 16y ago
Great points. As a funny side point, for a time my parents didn't have a microwave after moving once when I was a kid. The killer use of microwaves that got us to get one? Reheating baby food. There's just no efficient way to do it on a stove, other than putting it in a small jar in a pot of boiling water :)
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Now they generally recommend not using a microwave for baby food, because people too often would forget to stir it before feeding the baby.
  - maguay 16y ago
    Ouch; that's one thing you should definitely never forget. But I guess you'd burn the food if you didn't stir it on a stove :)
  - jerf 16y ago
    Solution: Stir it. (And check it, and also microwave less; small amounts of food may require single-digit seconds, so don't just smash the minute button.) There's actually a number of ways to make your parenting life a bit easier if you dig past why you're getting certain bits of advice, then take action based on the underlying facts rather than the resulting "official advice" suitable for parents with an IQ of 90 (and I do not mean that as a joke in the slightest, they are real, and I don't really begrudge the official "advice givers" for the resulting advice). Cough medicine in particular was a real life-saver for us one week when I dug into why we couldn't use it. It turns out that just about the only reason not to give it to your two-year-old is that somebody else ignored the clear directions on the label and either gave them too much or used it on purpose for the sleep-inducing side effect. Solution: Don't do that.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      The problem with parenting is sleep deprivation. And honestly, having a high IQ isn't sufficient for attention to detail, like stirring food. I know it sounds dumb, but I know prominent physics professor personally who had made a cake without eggs... and even when it came out looking funny served it and wasn't until people started eating it did they realize, "Wait... I didn't use the eggs on the counter!" Regarding cough medicine, the issue appears to be effectiveness. Most doctors now recommend honey for babies (older than one) as it actually appears to be as effective. See: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/honey/AN01799 http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/honey/AN01799 There have also been studies that show that cough medicine may simple have the placebo effect. Unless there are allergies or other conditions, honey just seems like the better choice.
      - jerf 16y ago
        "And honestly, having a high IQ isn't sufficient for attention to detail, like stirring food." Part of the problem here is that if you type it all out it sounds horrible. In reality, the world is not as dangerous as an Internet debate can make it sound. Type out the full description of what's involved in walking down the stairs and you'll make an emotionally-appealing for banning them ("my god, any one muscle fails to work and you can fall to your death!"), but it has no correspondence to reality. In my judgment, I am not even remotely endangering my kids in the real world. You are welcome to your opinions, but in my opinion turning my judgment over to others is itself not a good judgment. "There have also been studies that show that cough medicine may simple have the placebo effect." Right. Kid goes from a hacking cough that kept him awake for three nights straight to fast asleep (and resumed coughing the next day & night, so "he just got better at the same time" isn't on the table either) and it was all placebo, for a kid who can't even talk yet. Sure. Honey's an interesting thought which I may consider, except that there's no evidence that cough syrup is a problem, except vague nervousness because there haven't been any "scientific studies" on the topic. However I consider the abundant real-world experience that preceded the hand-wringing about it not being "properly" studied to trump it; on the scale of evidence scientific studies are not the highest good, the real world trumps it (which is actually a core tenant of any decent theory of science, any theory of science missing that isn't worth anything), and it was extremely widely deployed for a long time before some people got nannyish about it. If it were noticably bad, we wouldn't have to theorize, we'd know. (At best it can have a small below-the-noise-floor effect; widespread experience can't prove 0 bad effect but it can and does put a rather low upper bound on it.) (In fact I'm rather strongly of the opinion that there are numerous real-world examples in the field of medicine and nutrition in which science has "studied" itself into wildly wrong beliefs that nobody would have taken seriously but for the failures in the scientific process and the misapplication of its authority, and as much as I love science and wish I didn't have to do this, I've really deprioritized science in this area.)
  - pnp 16y ago
    That's a good warning. My wife always did a quick spoon-to-her-lips check on the food temperature as precaution. Similar idea to squirting the milk on your wrist. As always, pay attention to how the child reacts, too.
    - metageek 16y ago
      >My wife always did a quick spoon-to-her-lips check on the food temperature as precaution. You still need to stir, because microwaves can heat unevenly.
katovatzschyn 16y ago
I realize the frustration in receiving any parenting advice at all, but please bear in mind that being too strict in what germs the baby comes in contact with early on can have negative long term effects. I'm sure you know this already, just a thing to keep in mind.
- raganwald 16y ago
  George Carlin on the Fear of Germs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s
- JunkDNA 16y ago
  The issue with sterilizing bottles isn't to protect the kid from germs as much as it is to make sure that if mom has to pump into a bottle and store the milk for extended periods of time (often frozen eventually) it doesn't spoil. It's not any different than making something like freezer jam and sterilizing the jars. In general, pump parts themselves also can be sterilized this way in a special bag with a bit of water.
- Vivtek 16y ago
  Feeding the baby yogurt too early is a bad thing, too.
  - Ratfish 16y ago
    Product idea?
raganwald 16y ago
This. The very best gifts are the ones that you didn't know you wanted until you received one, and thereafter you discover that you can no longer live without them. My first microwave was a gift from my sister, and it followed this pattern. I scoffed at them as being convenient but taking up counter space for a function that my stove could accomplish already. Soon after she gave me one, I started wondering how I lived without it. Great products fit this mold exactly. People scoff until they try it, then they become attached to it, and finally dependent upon it.
- zubazuba 16y ago
  Great point! I feel like smartphones were like this too. When the iPhone first came out I scoffed at my buddy for paying $600 for a phone (in an age when a large variety of phones were available for free with contract). Now I can't live without my smartphone.
s3graham 16y ago
Stretching the metaphor even farther off-topic, Mummy's boob has proven itself an even more impressive invention for this particular problem in our house. :) No (extra) sterilization, no manual refilling, no going to the store to get formula, etc. I don't expect we'll evolve an embedded display that can run Flipboard anytime soon, however.
- bigiain 16y ago
  There's gotta be a joke in here about "the only intuitive user interface is the nipple", but it's too early in the morning for me to make it...
  - bzbarsky 16y ago
    It's only sort of intuitive. A fair number of kids have latching issues and have to be taught a bit how to do it properly.
bliss 16y ago
Actually, I had a microwave and didn't like it, hardly used it, eventually got rid of it. Even for your use case above. I instead have a standalone steam sterliser that's as quick as the microwave and a better user experience because it's much less fiddly and therefore quicker to load the bottles. One mans killer feature is another's meh.
arethuza 16y ago
I don't think we ever sterilized bottles other than picking out a fresh one that had been through a hot cycle on the dishwasher (i.e. the same as every other pot, pan, plate, fork, knife etc.).

by Jun8 16y ago

maguay 16y ago

Great points. As a funny side point, for a time my parents didn't have a microwave after moving once when I was a kid. The killer use of microwaves that got us to get one? Reheating baby food. There's just no efficient way to do it on a stove, other than putting it in a small jar in a pot of boiling water :)

kenjackson 16y ago
Now they generally recommend not using a microwave for baby food, because people too often would forget to stir it before feeding the baby.
- maguay 16y ago
  Ouch; that's one thing you should definitely never forget. But I guess you'd burn the food if you didn't stir it on a stove :)
- jerf 16y ago
  Solution: Stir it. (And check it, and also microwave less; small amounts of food may require single-digit seconds, so don't just smash the minute button.) There's actually a number of ways to make your parenting life a bit easier if you dig past why you're getting certain bits of advice, then take action based on the underlying facts rather than the resulting "official advice" suitable for parents with an IQ of 90 (and I do not mean that as a joke in the slightest, they are real, and I don't really begrudge the official "advice givers" for the resulting advice). Cough medicine in particular was a real life-saver for us one week when I dug into why we couldn't use it. It turns out that just about the only reason not to give it to your two-year-old is that somebody else ignored the clear directions on the label and either gave them too much or used it on purpose for the sleep-inducing side effect. Solution: Don't do that.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    The problem with parenting is sleep deprivation. And honestly, having a high IQ isn't sufficient for attention to detail, like stirring food. I know it sounds dumb, but I know prominent physics professor personally who had made a cake without eggs... and even when it came out looking funny served it and wasn't until people started eating it did they realize, "Wait... I didn't use the eggs on the counter!" Regarding cough medicine, the issue appears to be effectiveness. Most doctors now recommend honey for babies (older than one) as it actually appears to be as effective. See: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/honey/AN01799 http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/honey/AN01799 There have also been studies that show that cough medicine may simple have the placebo effect. Unless there are allergies or other conditions, honey just seems like the better choice.
    - jerf 16y ago
      "And honestly, having a high IQ isn't sufficient for attention to detail, like stirring food." Part of the problem here is that if you type it all out it sounds horrible. In reality, the world is not as dangerous as an Internet debate can make it sound. Type out the full description of what's involved in walking down the stairs and you'll make an emotionally-appealing for banning them ("my god, any one muscle fails to work and you can fall to your death!"), but it has no correspondence to reality. In my judgment, I am not even remotely endangering my kids in the real world. You are welcome to your opinions, but in my opinion turning my judgment over to others is itself not a good judgment. "There have also been studies that show that cough medicine may simple have the placebo effect." Right. Kid goes from a hacking cough that kept him awake for three nights straight to fast asleep (and resumed coughing the next day & night, so "he just got better at the same time" isn't on the table either) and it was all placebo, for a kid who can't even talk yet. Sure. Honey's an interesting thought which I may consider, except that there's no evidence that cough syrup is a problem, except vague nervousness because there haven't been any "scientific studies" on the topic. However I consider the abundant real-world experience that preceded the hand-wringing about it not being "properly" studied to trump it; on the scale of evidence scientific studies are not the highest good, the real world trumps it (which is actually a core tenant of any decent theory of science, any theory of science missing that isn't worth anything), and it was extremely widely deployed for a long time before some people got nannyish about it. If it were noticably bad, we wouldn't have to theorize, we'd know. (At best it can have a small below-the-noise-floor effect; widespread experience can't prove 0 bad effect but it can and does put a rather low upper bound on it.) (In fact I'm rather strongly of the opinion that there are numerous real-world examples in the field of medicine and nutrition in which science has "studied" itself into wildly wrong beliefs that nobody would have taken seriously but for the failures in the scientific process and the misapplication of its authority, and as much as I love science and wish I didn't have to do this, I've really deprioritized science in this area.)
- pnp 16y ago
  That's a good warning. My wife always did a quick spoon-to-her-lips check on the food temperature as precaution. Similar idea to squirting the milk on your wrist. As always, pay attention to how the child reacts, too.
  - metageek 16y ago
    >My wife always did a quick spoon-to-her-lips check on the food temperature as precaution. You still need to stir, because microwaves can heat unevenly.

katovatzschyn 16y ago

I realize the frustration in receiving any parenting advice at all, but please bear in mind that being too strict in what germs the baby comes in contact with early on can have negative long term effects. I'm sure you know this already, just a thing to keep in mind.

raganwald 16y ago
George Carlin on the Fear of Germs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s
JunkDNA 16y ago
The issue with sterilizing bottles isn't to protect the kid from germs as much as it is to make sure that if mom has to pump into a bottle and store the milk for extended periods of time (often frozen eventually) it doesn't spoil. It's not any different than making something like freezer jam and sterilizing the jars. In general, pump parts themselves also can be sterilized this way in a special bag with a bit of water.
Vivtek 16y ago
Feeding the baby yogurt too early is a bad thing, too.
- Ratfish 16y ago
  Product idea?

raganwald 16y ago

This. The very best gifts are the ones that you didn't know you wanted until you received one, and thereafter you discover that you can no longer live without them. My first microwave was a gift from my sister, and it followed this pattern. I scoffed at them as being convenient but taking up counter space for a function that my stove could accomplish already. Soon after she gave me one, I started wondering how I lived without it. Great products fit this mold exactly. People scoff until they try it, then they become attached to it, and finally dependent upon it.

zubazuba 16y ago
Great point! I feel like smartphones were like this too. When the iPhone first came out I scoffed at my buddy for paying $600 for a phone (in an age when a large variety of phones were available for free with contract). Now I can't live without my smartphone.

s3graham 16y ago

Stretching the metaphor even farther off-topic, Mummy's boob has proven itself an even more impressive invention for this particular problem in our house. :) No (extra) sterilization, no manual refilling, no going to the store to get formula, etc. I don't expect we'll evolve an embedded display that can run Flipboard anytime soon, however.

bigiain 16y ago
There's gotta be a joke in here about "the only intuitive user interface is the nipple", but it's too early in the morning for me to make it...
- bzbarsky 16y ago
  It's only sort of intuitive. A fair number of kids have latching issues and have to be taught a bit how to do it properly.

bliss 16y ago

Actually, I had a microwave and didn't like it, hardly used it, eventually got rid of it. Even for your use case above. I instead have a standalone steam sterliser that's as quick as the microwave and a better user experience because it's much less fiddly and therefore quicker to load the bottles. One mans killer feature is another's meh.

arethuza 16y ago

I don't think we ever sterilized bottles other than picking out a fresh one that had been through a hot cycle on the dishwasher (i.e. the same as every other pot, pan, plate, fork, knife etc.).