sterilising bottles

[nearlyreadytopop]

I'm contemplating a move from bf to ff or possibly feeding expressed milk.
What's the best way to sterilise bottles?
I've seen a number of sterilsers that say sterile for 24hrs if unopened but surely if you are making up one bottle at a time then the remaining bottles need redone after each one is removed?
Or do you sterilise a batch of bottles, build them up and then leave them sitting until needed?

Sterilise a bunch in an Avent microwave thingy, make up however many you need for the next 12 hours, refrigerate, nuke. Job done.

Probably not the most helpful answer ever. Sterilise a batch. Keep them in the steriliser thingy. Most important thing is to wash your hands.

we've FF from birth as I had no milk supply whatsoever but I steralise a load in the electric steam steraliser, put the bottle together and leave closed till use, the pace we go through bottles there never longer than about 12hours left empty and sterile at best. I make every feed up fresh as per instructions.

Yeah I never did. I sterilised a bunch, made them up, stuck them in the fridge, then heated back up in the microwave. Im very aware this is not current practice, and neither are my two children horribly impaired in any way because of it. But the current guidelines will scare you shirtless.

fair enough, I have a perfect prep machine so it's no drama, I imagine with a kettle and what not it would be a major hassle so I can see why people go old school, I was also fed formula the way you mentioned and I turned out fine....sorta haha

Absolutely! I now have an instant kettle thingy but even so... It's the formula you have to sterilise, not the water.

I bf but DH gives DS1 a bottle or 2 of expressed milk each day. I sterilise bottles in microwave thing, put in milk, put in fridge. I also microwave them as DS will only take a bottle of really warm milk and we'd be there for hours in a pan.....as long as you shake thoroughly and test I don't see the issue in that,

The purpose of cleaning and sterilising is to ensure there is no milk residue left from the previous feeds. The bacteria you are trying to kill is in the milk powder. Sterilise the bottles, assemble them and store in the fridge (empty). They are fine for 24 hours.

Other countries, such as the US, say that sterilising is unnecessary. Make of that what you will... I suspect many British mothers just use a dishwasher, which is brilliant at getting hot enough to kill germs. They also dry items beautifully, which is perfect since a dry bottle/teat is pretty inhospitable to bacteria.

US dishwashers tend to run hotter cycles than European ones. They are not bound by EU regulations to reduce water and power consumption.

I'm with FastWindow on this. Wash bottles and teats, rinse and sterilize in a steam steriliser (I had a microwave one which did 4 bottles at a time). Make up feeds with slightly cooled boiled water, flash cool under a cold running tap and store in fridge. At the rate we went through them they didn't sit around in the fridge for long (babies were miniature sludge pumps).

We used to microwave bottles to warm them up too, as advised by a friend that worked in scbu who couldn't understand why we were faffing around with jugs of hot water. As long as you shake the bottle well to mix in any hotspots and test it, it's fine.

Hey :-) I love, love, love the Milton Cold water steriliser! You can put things in and take things out when needed. It uses no electric and is also great for travel.
Personally I never heated baby bottles on the microwave (I do heat milk in the microwave for my older kids, 2,3 and 5 now though if they want warm milk). X

When I was expressing for DD in NICU I bought the milton cold water steriliser. Purely for the fact you can put stuff in and take stuff out throughout the 24 hours and it keeps everything sterile. Have to leave each item for 15 minutes, but no worrying that you need 1 bottle so the rest aren't sterile any more. Just change water and sterilising fluid every 24 hours.

Does anyone know what wattage their microwave is? I've been reading that it needs to be 1000-1200 watts to sterilize, yet most microwaves are around the 900w range.

I had an 800 watt microwave, you just microwave the steam steriliser for longer in microwaves with lower wattages, as you're generating steam to sterilise the bottles, teats etc. Should be covered in the instructions.