Help - Sterilising bottles for day out

[sharleenh]

Hi - new to this. I have been BF ing my DD for nearly 6 months and in the last week have been switching 1 feed a day to formula. I am using ready made cartons until I know which one she will settle with. If I sterlise a bottle before I go out and assemble it, will it then be sterile to use later when I come to fill it with the ready made milk? If this is not correct, how do you take a bottle out and keep it sterile to use with ready made milk? Thank you all in advance and sorry if this is a daft question.

[yousaidit]

Well, whenis used acold water sterliser i think that water is sterilised once the tablet is dissolved, for 24hrs, so ui used to fi,ll up a bottle with as much sterilised water as possible, then when it came to feeding dd, slinging the sterilised water out and putting the carton of milk in! Sounds faffy, but it is pretty easy to get used to!

[REIDmylips]

Sterilising was on ething i used to 'stress' over in the forst few months, however i soon realised i didn't need to. I use Dr Brown bottles so they were a pain to assemble. On days out i would sterilise them at hom (and a ssemble them as much as possible) then put them in a freezer bag (which i know isn't sterilised but at least keeps other bits away)until i needed the bottle.

I am pretty sure that i have read on here in the past that sterilising isn't actually necessary at all anyway.

hth

[yousaidit]

Sorrym,if not clear just fill up bottle in the steiliser ( so i had both hands in filling up bottle, then putting teat in the 'ring' 'screwcap thing' and fixing the bottle together (and just to be safe wrapped in afreezer bag!) I did use trhe 'steribottles' you can buy, once or twice but dd wasn't that keen and she took milk much better from her own bottles when she was out and about.

[DontNeedAnything]

What you said in your OP is fine.

If you go by teh manufacturers of the sterliser they say bottles stay sterile fo up to 4hours.

However, I used to use powdered mikl in bottles which had been prepared up to 24hrs earlier so that gives you longer than 4 hours.

Finally after 6m if a bottle is scrupuously clean it is not actually necessary to sterlise.

All in all it will be fine for the day, but be careful that you assemble it with clean hands and teat tongs to avoid slurring germs all over it

[gigglewitch]

i bf my dc, and had a similar dilemma when did some bottle feeding. We discovered "Steribottles" - can be bought in boots superdrug mothercare and the usual suspects selling baby stuff, and they are fantastic, bf babies seem to feed really well from them as the teats are so soft, and at 50p a go it is probably a reasonable thing for a one-off on a day trip, there are 4 in a pack for about £2.
Just in case you need another solution

[EyeballsinHiding]

Sterilise, assemble, bung in sandwich bag, use when necessary here too.

Sterilising is one of those things that is a major stress at first but 6 months in I've got a lot more relaxed. The cleanliness of the bottle is the most important thing as far as I can see.

[kookykid]

IMO she's six months not six weeks. Just sterlise and assemble as usual, chuck in your bag and go! Surely it's the inside of the bottle that matters, so what difference does the sandwich bag make?

[EyeballsinHiding]

I tend to use the bags in case the lid comes off (TT Closer to Nature bottle lids are a bugger to put on sometimes) so at least the teat wasn't covered in all the Kit Kat crumbs fluff from the bottom of my bag.

[yousaidit]

I second eyeballs inhiding: the more public the space, the less likely to be able to remove the lid on the tt closer to nature bottles without taking someones head off!

[Tinkjon]

I just sterilise bottles as usual and assemble them empty but tightly-closed and then consider them sterile for about 24 hours. Then just pour the milk carton in. Or else I put the water in and add pre-measured milk powder when needed (but the Dr Brown bottles have a tendency to leak so I prefer cartons when we're out). I have a bag with separate compartment for bottles, so I just put them in there and don't bother with a freezer bag.