do i really need a sterilising unit?

[twoboots]

Travelling to family in ireland soon for potentially a fortnight. dd is bf with an occasional bottle of expressed milk. We have a steam steriliser here, but I plan to use milton whilst I'm away. Can I get away with a clean basin to sterilise the bottles and teats, or do we need to purchase the unit?

you can buy steralising bags that go in the microwave, they are quite cheap and all you do is put bottles in put in bit of water and bung in microwave, easier than milton i would ahve thought? (oh and you can use them a few times)

Just washing in hot soapy water is fine, but if you want to sterilize when your away it's probably easiest just to boil everything for 4 minutes.

they are called Lindam microwave steriliser bags and are £4.99 for 3 at mothercare.

I second the microwave bags. Have used them on hols and they're great.

Have you thought of the sterilisation bags. Much easier. Lindam do them as do others. Can get microwave ones or ones where you can use tap water.

if its just occasional bottle I'd go with nancy's suggestion.. milton is quite godo but you have to do it in large bowl etc (could use a basin I suppose if you know capacity as have to measure out water to know how much fluid/tablet to put in) and need to change it every day...plus it sucks the life out of your hands (and dd may not like taste of it on her bottle at first)

You don't need to purchase a unit - it's just more clutter.

When I was expressing, I had some sterilising bags - they were basically large drawstring poly bags (strong so they could cope with the weight of water) that came with their own tablet. The idea was to hook them over a door handle when you were travelling.

We've got a tommee tippee single bottle microwave travel steriliser which is also pretty handy and can be used with milton too I think.

oops - others beat me to it

Not sure how to attach link but you can cut and paste this weblink

www.travellingwithchildren.co.uk/acatalog/Disposable_Sterilising_Bags.html#a501656 4370218

if you don't have microwave there are the bags that have a tablet you can drop in

tescos do a travel steraliser that you put milton tabs in, only big enough for 2 bottles, looks like the size of a lucnh box, £4 ish,

to be honests thou, any plastic box/tubbaware with a lid will do the trick,

only if you dont have a micro to hand