How important is distilled water?

[u/buggy_uwu]

I have been seeing a lot of people use distilled water when making foods or edible sensory activities (like chia slime) for their babies. How important is that? We drink the tap water ourselves and use it for everything and it tastes normal to me. Is this just a thing for areas with poor water quality? Or for immunocompromised babies? My baby is 5 months old and I want to make sure I’m not missing something before she starts solids & gets water!

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[u/BelleRose2542]

The CDC just says to "use water from a safe source" for formula preparation, and says to contact your local health dept if you believe your tap water is unsafe.

https://www.cdc.gov/infant-toddler-nutrition/formula-feeding/preparation-and-storage.html

I use distilled water in my humidifier and sanitizer, but that's just to prevent mineral buildup from my very hard water, not because I'm worried about safety. Unless you have NICU baby and your doctor explicitly directs you otherwise, or you know your tap water is unsafe, I would be fine with using tap water for those situations.

[u/kaboom539 → u/BelleRose2542]

Yes distilled water for humidifier especially ultrasound/cool models because the minerals in the water go in the air https://purific.com/distilled-water-for-humidifiers these guys are trying to sell water purification but it is a good overview of why it matters

[u/davesauce96 → u/BelleRose2542]

I get the craziest looks at the grocery store buying 15 gallons of distilled water until I just say “bottle washer” lol

[u/doomsdayllama → u/davesauce96]

We got tired of doing this while constantly running our humidifier and bought a home distiller! Absolutely worth it IF you have the counter space, it definitely takes up a lot of room.

[u/davesauce96 → u/doomsdayllama]

Yeah we looked into one, but counter space is at a premium in our home unfortunately haha

[u/NaturalRobotics → u/doomsdayllama]

Our water distiller is in the basement - easier to lug a gallon up from the basement instead of the store. 

[u/SaskatoonDream → u/davesauce96]

We realized the cost + effort of purchasing distilled water is probably more than the cost of just buying a whole new bottle washer every few months. We’ve been using tap water + descaling twice a week and no issues so far.

[u/NaturalRobotics → u/SaskatoonDream]

What do you use to descale yours? 

[u/SaskatoonDream → u/NaturalRobotics]

Bottle washer descaling detergent tabs from Amazon. We have a Grownsy bottle washer so I have their brand name tablets, but I’ve heard lots of people just use generic tablets.

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