What's the point in sterilizing more than 1 bottle at a time if the rest are unsterile when you remove lid?

[Hotmad]

Hey, I have an avent 3in1 electric steam steriliser and the manual is not very helpful, however, it says that if kid is unopened then contents can stay sterile for 24hrs.
Now I'm breast feeding at mo so I only sterilise when I try to express (not very well I mite add so I use a few bottles)
But what's the point in sterilising more than 1 item at a time if as soon as I take lid off the rest will become unsterile ( I presume? Is this correct?)
How have you dealt with your sterilising tasks?
Thanks as always for your input.

Good point! I think it's because guidelines have changed and so I used to sterilise bottles for the day and fill with boiling water ready to add powder to. Now you're not supposed to do that it's probably only worth sterilising one at a time. Actually sometimes I used to sterilise the bottle and put it all together with nothing in if I was taking a carton of milk out in the day.

I hope someone can give me some help on this!

if you sterilise them and then assemble them then they are ok for 24 hours.

Assemble them and where do I keep them?

Assemble them and pop them (empty) into the fridge.

The sterilising is to kill the bacteria that grows in the formula. The bottles will not come to any harm assembled in a clean fridge in a clean kitchen.

Assemble and store them in the steriliser. (or wherever you have space)

Personally I've not really worried about it and just put the lid back on and still use the bottles.

Its the same principle as the hair dye strand test.
They tell you to do a strand test everytime because they may have changed something - but everytime you open/mix the dye you are told not to store the left over dye.
So you open, strand test, throw away.
Open, strand test, throw away.

When do you actually get to dye your hair?

Sorry - tangent, its just always annoyed me!

I used to assemble and put them in the cupboard

p.s. re the hairdye - you only mix a small amount of each in a suitable dish, you dont mix the full amount so no need to throw anything away

To be honest home-sterilising is just an additional attempt to be as clean as possible. It's not like hospital sterile. If you haven't been really, really thorough with your washing and there are any traces of food product on the bottles, then even after being steamed, the items still won't be "sterile".

As long as your bottles are as clean as you can possibly make them and you've given them a zap in the steriliser, you'll be fine. If in doubt re-sterilise. It's a fairly quick & easy process to turn it back on again.

We take the bottles, dummies and breast pump out of the sterilizer and place them on the kitchen side on a clean tea towel as the instructions we got said to air dry the clean bottles before use. Like someone said if it's kept in a clean place I don't see the problem it's more to do with formula then anything else

But doesn't it tell you that once opened you have to discard regardless of whether or not you have mixed?

Sorry again op.

no its only the made up mixture that you have to discard - you can just screw the lids back on and mix the full amount up once you pass the allergy tests

in fact in the allergy test you only use a little of the unmixed colourant product, you only mix if your particular box tells you to or if you want to do a strand test (I have done allergy tests before but dont do strand tests)

Any germ in the air in your house are not going to grow effectively in 24 hours in the drops of distilled water droplets left on a recently sterilised bottle. Bearing in mind that these are the germs your baby will be breathing in anyway.

Hospital sterilisation is a different kettle of fish because any germs allowed into a scalpel will be going into an open wound.