Bottle Sterilising

[pearl20]

I'm 37 weeks pregnant and have decided to sterilise the baby's bottles in preparation for her arrival which could be anytime now.

But now I'm thinking, how do I store them? Are they ok to just go back in the box or a cupboard? Or do I need to store them properly? I'm thinking I should've waited but I just wanted to be organised and use my new machine.

Also, I'm a first time mum incase these questions seem ridiculous. Do I need to sterilise baby's bottles after each feed?

You can't sterilise them this far in advance...they only stay sterile for 24 hours! Buy a few starter packs of formula with the pre steralised teats and just sort out bottles when you get home. Some babies dont like certain bottles and you wont know til they're born and you try them.

And yes, you wash bottles in the dishwasher or sink at the start or end of the day, and sterilise them after! Make sure you have enough bottles for a full day.

You can certainly try out your machine, however as PP said they are only sterile for 24 hours. It only takes minutes anyway so I wouldn't worry too much about doing it in advance.

If you are bottle feeding our hospital gave us a big bag of the ready made formula bottles with sterile teats for the first few days - not all hospitals do this though! You can buy them in most supermarkets.

As PP said you never know with the bottles - I bought loads of Tommee Tipee and she hated them, ended up selling them.

@Primrose89 ooops! Ok, not to worry. At least I know how to use the steriliser now anyway. How many bottles would you say is enough for a whole day?

@Teacaketotty they're the ones I've got - tommee tippee, which ones did you little one get on with? I'm just going to have to wait and see if she likes them and then if she doesn't, buy some other ones.

@pearl20 I ended up getting NUK ones, she was premature though and I think the TT ones were just too big for her - most babies seem to like them though since they are pretty much all I see! Fingers crossed yours takes to them!

If you’re formula feeding then dr brown definitely. My baby had no wind at all and I would have loved to keep them - but the teat isn’t really suitable for expressed breastmilk as it makes them forget how to latch.

I think our steriliser took about six bottles, and we ran it twice a day. It took about five minutes

I used to do 6 for day use and 6 for night. That way they only went 12hrs most. Just used to take them out with lids on till ready to use.

I didn't solely bottle feed til DS was a month old but by then he liked the MAM dummies so I put him on MAM bottles and he's been fine! If your baby ends up with reflux or colic you may find an anti colic bottle better than the normal tommee tippee ones. With Mam bottles you dont need a steriliser, they self sterilise in the microwave so that was a plus for me!

@Primrose89 we have some of the MAM bottles, but the ones we have are the ones from ages 2m+ not newborn. I have a mixture of Tommee Tippee dummies and also MAM dummies and yes they do actually come with the self sterilising box which is fab! I didn't know the bottles self sterilised too. I might see how she gets on with Tommee Tippee and if she doesn't like them, try MAM and purchase some suitable from 0m. Only thing is, we have the bottle prep machine so there would be no need for us to microwave her bottles but could we put the bottles in the microwave without milk to sterilise them?

Yes, some of the mam bottles can be sterilised in the microwave, avter you have washed them. But they need to be assembled in a specific way to do this and you need to add water. It'll probably be easier to use your steriliser. Have a look at the instructions the bottles came with.

You microwave them empty as PP said, fill the bottom bit with water, put the teat on top, the main bottle part over the top of that and the lid just sits on the very top. 3mins for a bottle and add a minute for each extra bottle you have. Easy peasy. We have the prep machine too for actually making them!