Do I need a bottle steriliser?

A bottle steriliser is a handy addition to your baby equipment because it helps keep your baby’s bottles, pacifiers, teethers, and dishes free from germs. Sterilising helps protect your baby from germs and infection. Also, most mums find a sterilizer is a practical change from having to manually immerse and then pull out each bottle and teething accessory from a pot of boiling water. Sterilisers make your job as a mum quicker and easier.

Why sterilise?

Bacteria have a knack for breeding especially fast in the leftover, stale milk in your baby’s bottle. Even after thoroughly washing out the bottle with dish cleaner and water, the stale smell and small amounts of germs may remain. For this reason it is strongly recommended that you use a steriliser for your baby’s bottles, teats, dummies, breast pumps, and other feeding accessories.

The Department of Health suggests that you introduce your baby to solids starting from six months; however, should you decide to start earlier you should use a steriliser for all bowls and spoons used for feeding. Sterilising your baby’s equipment should continue until he turns one.

How do sterilisers work?

Bottle sterilizers steam the bottles, thus saving on water and energy. Baby bottle sterilizers are usually automated so that you don’t have to continually check on the progress, which is usually the case with manually sterilizing baby bottles in a pot of boiling water. Bottles can be left in the sterilizer until you need them, or you can remove them, keep them on a clean rack for drying, and later store them away in a clean, dry area with the rest of baby’s equipment. Most sterilisers can hold between 4 and 6 bottles at a time.

Tips to remember before using a sterilizer:

Remember that a bottle sterilizer is not a bottle cleaner. Sterilizers do not take the place of the good old fashioned soap and water routine when it comes to cleaning dishes. All baby equipment should be thoroughly washed before getting put in the sterilizer. The same goes for heat resistant spoons, cups, pacifier, and chew toys.

An important point before buying a sterilizer is to be certain that the bottles you use are from the same brand. Most of the time bottles will not fit properly into the sterilizer if they are both from different manufacturers. Hence, if you are going to buy Dr. Brown’s Deluxe Electric Sterilizer we suggest that you shop for Dr Brown’s Baby Bottles for your baby as well.

Most of the time using hard water in the sterilizer can cause calcium build-up which is hard to clean off. If you want to prevent water spots and the calcium build-up, use distilled water.