Steriliser advice

[Everafter1]

Narrowed it down to two.
Mam steriliser that also heats the milk & food, or
Babymoov turbo which dries the bottles.

I plan on breastfeeding, but will express.

Wondered what features other users have found to be more useful?

I got a cheap microwave one that held six bottles. I think it was around 20 pounds. We didn't have much bench space so it lived inside the microwave.

I'd not be bothered about a one that warms the bottles and food as I fed as soon as making (blast chilled quickly as made with boiling water), or just took one from the fridge and gave that.

Similarly wasn't too bothered about the drying as I just rinsed and stacked the bottles into the sterilizer then put it on once full. I'd then make them all up in one go and they were dry enough for that already.

I had a cold water steriliser. No faffyness, simple to use. Kept everything sterile for 24 hours.

Unless you're expressing exclusively I don't think you need a steriliser for expressing at all? It's an unnecessary expense. You can either use the cold water tablets or the microwave sterilising pouches - and washing in hot soapy water is sufficient in any case.

Do you have a dishwasher? I'm sure they sterilize.

For occasional expressing we used microwave sterilising bags that could be reused, plus cold water sterilising.

Yeah I will still need a steriliser. I'm not too bothered about the cost, more about what would be more useful to make things easier. Think I'm swayed towards the warming one. I'll have a look at the cold water ones too!

Dishwashers don't sterilise, or I would just use that.

Thanks everyone.

microwave sterilising bags that could be reused

Thanks, I'll have a look at these too!

Unless you experience issues you may find you don't really use it, you can boil bottles in a large pan for occasional use. Buy one later if you do need one

I wouldn’t get anything fancy and expensive if you’re planning to breastfeed, there’s really no need. You could even just get mam bottles that self sterilise in the microwave. Why would they need drying after sterilising? And if you have a microwave why do you need another device for heating up food?? Money better spent elsewhere imo.

Why not try the mam self sterilising bottles and then you dont need a steriliser

Breastfed babies don’t need sterilised bottles even for expressed milk. Dishwasher’s fine. If you plan on combi feeding with formula then the sterilisation is only required for bottled formula milk

The breastmilk itself is sterile but not the bottles or the pump, nhs guidelines to sterilise.

I think the reusable bags look great! Hadn't thought about them as I thought they were all disposable & don't really like waste. Would also prevent taking up a lot of space.

I'm sure they have a maximum amount of times they can be used before disposing of them.

Started off using microwave steriliser but in the end just had big Tupperware bowl with Milton tablet and used to wash them by hand and put them in there until they were needed.

2 in 1 steriliser

I breastfed with my last baby and also expressed. I had also two hospital stays while was expressing and breastfed. Was told that there is new research and if you use equipment for breast milk no need to sterilise as breast milk has some antibacterial properties.

I did had anyways a steriliser and did that with my bottles and pump pieces just because I felt better doing it. Had Tommee Tippee steriliser, I bought it used but was great conditions. I also had a small microwave one, tommee tippee, which I used for pacifiers and small stuff like that.

NHs Scotland advice has recently changed to say no need to sterilise for breastmilk, in line with La Leche League etc. recommendations. There's no harm in doing it but it's not necessary.

... most of the time thou I didn’t sterilise my bottles, I used to have an antibacterial washing liquid, used that with really warm water.

Here's the Scottish Government site:

www.parentclub.scot/articles/breast-milk-storage-and-bottle-hygiene

I am going to sterilise. Also recommended for cleaning the pump.

Thanks everyone!

@Monique007 yeah I feel the same!

Agreed @cellybelly Health visitor and midwife both said the NHS advice is still old and doesn’t take into account recent research that sterilizing expressed milk bottles could end up reducing a child’s healthy gut bacteria, presumably because there are still idiots out there who might not wash a bottle at all!

Not sure if you've got your pump yet, but if not this may be worth considering - I have a tommee tippee electric pump which came in a storage box that was also a microwave steriliser, it came with bags to express into which you could either freeze or store in the fridge and had a little adaptor thing that meant you could feed the baby from the bag. All the bits go back in the box for sterilising (apart from the bags which are single use)

I’ve had a microwave steriliser and a Milton tank and the tank was so much less of a faff, I’d use it again if I was having another.

I've got a milton cold water sterilizer which I got for expressing which was great.
Were now mix feeding and I've got the mam one you mentioned. Its brilliant, get it from amazon though as it is cheaper