I had a baby brezza and I really liked it. We moved when I was pregnant with my second and it got lost so now we have a dr browns which seems to work the same. I didn’t want to use plastic bottles either so I got glass Philips avent bottles. Both of my sons took to them and I was able to breastfeed and pump at work without issues.

We ran everything in the dishwasher on the sterilizer setting. Holds a lot and didn’t need an extra thing on the countertop!

Freaking out before baby arrives is pretty natural. I’m also breastfeeding, so keeping everything safe and truly clean was a top priority.

We ended up getting the Grownsy bottle washer and sterilizer, and it honestly made a huge difference. It uses steam to sterilize, dries everything right after, and it fits both our tommee tippee bottles and all the little pump parts, we used eufy s1 without any issues.

I have the Dr. Brown one. At 4 months pp, I hardly use it anymore. I sterilized a lot in the beginning, but now I just wash in really hot water and soap. It's one of those things that comes in handy but it's certainly not absolutely necessary. Looking back, I would have rather saved the sixty bucks and just got a microwave sterilizer.

I use the momcozy fast bottle sterilizer and dryer, and I love that I don’t have to worry about bottles sitting around wet

I got Philips steriliser and dryer. I fully recommend. However, when we were leaving hospital midwife told us there is no need to sterilise. Just use baby dishsoap and extra hot water, let then dry and it is ok. I still feel better using sterile stuff

Honestly we just washed ours with regular old dish soap and a bottle brush. Neither of our kids had any issues.

I have a sterilizer and it’s great BUT I end up using the dishwasher because it washes and sterilizes, even though it takes longer. I’d recommend getting a bottle washer and sterilizer in one, it’s so much easier that way

Depends how many bottles you have and how often you run your dishwasher, and if you also have pump parts to wash. I splurged for the Momcozy bottle washer for baby #2 because having to hand wash before sterilizing for baby #1 was annoying. If baby isn’t premature you can sterilize once then hand wash and dry going forward if you don’t mind doing the work.

If your baby is healthy and full-term, you don't ever need to sanitize beyond doing so once when you pull stuff out of the packaging and get it ready to use the first time.

If you're planning to bottle feed exclusively, these gadgets might be nice. But they're not necessary by any means, and if you're planning to be an occasional bottle user, definitely skip it. When we were exclusively bottle feeding we had enough bottles to use the dishwasher daily, and that worked great for us. Be mindful of putting silicone stuff, so pump parts and nipples, in the dishwasher though, as the silicone can take on the taste of the dishwasher detergent and your baby might not like it. The high heat can also break down the silicone faster. So we hand washed silicone, but everything else went through the dishwasher.

Hand washing and drying is totally fine. I was just advised to dry with a paper towel because kitchen towels can be gross. You only need to dry if you're filling/using a bottle right then, otherwise you can leave stuff to air dry.

And do remember that these things will still be available after baby comes, you do not need to commit to any gadgets now. It's totally fine to see how life goes without the gadgets and decide once you're doing it if you need them. Two-day shipping isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

I found one at a baby consignment fair for 50 bucks, but it's just a dryer and sterilizer. If I didn't find it super cheap, I was just going to boil in water

I got the Papablic 5 in 1 after reading a thread on Reddit with multiple people suggesting it instead of the Baby Breeza because it does the same thing at a better price point.

Hello!! I’m a FTM as of 4 months ago and I LOVE my sterilizer / dryer. I thought I wouldn’t need it but we ended up getting it after my baby was born because it takes a while for things to air dry. If you’re breastfeeding you’ll most likely have to pump every four hours in the beginning and they just don’t dry that fast so we were using paper towels and particles would get in there. I really wish we would’ve had it that first week. Now if you’re just bottle feeding and you have 20 bottles (so you’d always have some ready) I think the dishwasher or hand washing might be fine, but since I mostly breastfeed and my baby only has about 1-2 bottles a day, we have 6 bottles total so we run it once a day with her binkie but multiple times to dry with my pump and her teethers. Not sure about the full on bottle washer. We just use a plastic washing tub and bottle soap and then sterilize and it’s easy enough!

I have the nanobebe microwave steam sterilizer, it only takes 4 mins, fits a lot, and was cheap.

I love the baby brezza one! The one that kind of looks like a space ship lol. Everyone said not to get one but 3 weeks in and it’s my most used baby appliance.

I have the Wabi sterilizer. It drys and sterilizes. Definitely one of the most used and useful baby gear I've bought.

If you really didn’t want one, you could just use the microwave bags. They are cheap, portable, easy to use and don’t take up space

The microwave bags sre great!

I went with the baby brezza sterilizer and dryer and I’ve been really happy with it. It fits our glass bottles with no problem. I also like that I can run a quick sterilize-only or sterilize and dry combo, depending on what I need. I haven’t had issues with any smells or weird residue either, which was my concern before buying.

Soap and water.

I use a large pot of boiling water honestly. The Medela microwave steam bags are nice too.

We have the brezza. It’s great but I think any washer/steriliser is going to make your life easier.

TBH I was skeptical (I’m not really a gadgety person, especially one-off gadgets) but my sister (with two kids) got us one as a shower gift. It has been a life saver. We have the microwave sterilisation bags as a back-up but it’s not as convenient as having a machine do everything. We do loads of bottles, pump parts and soothers.

The mom cozy bottle washer is my favourite parent item. I run it every night to clean all my bottles and pump parts and everything is ready for me in the morning. It’s a great product and would recommend it to any new parent!

We have the Philips avent one. We love the dryer feature and as such were still using it at 14 months in because of that feature and was also great for pump parts I stopped at 9 months pp. Still going strong and was run 8 times a day until 9 months and now 1-2/day at 14 months. I also put soothers/toys etc as it has a flat tray!

I've heard the mom cozy one is good! I know a lot of mom also just recommend a counter top dishwasher so you can use regular detergent. 

Do you have a microwave? There's a super easy microwave sterilizer. You just clean the bottles in the sink and then zap them for 2 minutes and you're good to go.

I have a UV tomee tippee one and love it

Philips Avent or Minbie

We just use the Kmart (Anko?) one. UV steriliser and dryer. Used it for a few months now, multiple times a day and hasn't missed a beat. It was only $99 too. 

Love the Minbie one with a lid. The dryer is the best addition because it stops a counter full of bottles. Set and forget!

Initially looked at the Philips Avent with dryer function however some feedback on having to clean the bottom encouraged looking elsewhere though I would still be happy getting it.

In the end went with the Tommee Tippee UV Steriliser and Dryer for $184 after price matching Baby Bunting against another vendor. There are quite a few used for about half the price or so on Facebook Marketplace.

Haenim is the bees knees.

Microwave sterilisers are handy as well especially for road trips and visiting family and friends.

Just a reminder, a sanitizer doesn't clean bottles. You still have to wash them (either by hand or dishwasher) before sterilizing them.

Once that clicked in my head, I returned the sterilizer.

I would look into a countertop dishwasher.

We use our sterilizer for pump parts, bottles, and pacifiers. It’s a sterilizer AND dryer, and it has a short cycle, so things are quickly ready to use. Since I’m exclusively pumping, we honestly run it multiple times per day. We love it!!

I don’t have a dishwasher and was gifted a bottle sanitizer. It’s invaluable to me. I use it several times a day to sterilize bottles, soothers, pump parts, the nose Frida, etc.

I've never hand washed a bottle in my life. We used our dishwasher. You can still run a load even if it's not full. We run it every night and unload first thing in the AM. Dishes never pile up.

Dishwashers are much more clean than hand washing. There’s nothing wrong with running it every day if it’s not full! Baby will probably produce enough to make it full too.

My life was changed when I realized that it saves water to use the dishwasher, even half empty! And also that it had a sanitize setting.

For the first 3 weeks we just sterilized bottles and pump parts in boiling water once, then washed with warm water and soap every time.

At 3 weeks and 1 day I caved and ordered a washer/sterilizer/dryer at 1am. I was so tired of washing things, we bought it just for the convenience, not the sterilization factor lol.

It is worth EVERY PENNY. It’s running several times a day, saving me hours. We have a tiny kitchen in our apartment (like seriously, comically small- all the appliances are 1/2 size) but I don’t even mind the space it takes up on the counter.

Maybe I'm in the minority but we just boiled the bottles, nipples, pump parts, packs, etc before the first use and didn't do it again. After the first sterilization we just washed things with hot soapy water. Our kids were born full term and healthy, though. If you have an immunocompromised baby I think it would be different.

Dishwasher or boiling! Or microwaveable steam bags

There's a microwave syatem you can look up.

I just sterilized all my new bottles, pacifiers and pump parts last night. We boiled some and used microwave sterilizer bags for others. I'll probably use the microwave bags moving forward as we'll never need to sterilize that many at a time again.

If you do buy a sterilizer, I would buy the washer/dryer/sterilizer combo. Get it all done in one step. We're going to see how it goes without one but will find the room if we find it to be overwhelming.

We currently hand wash and use the VitalBaby UV sterimizer. I just got the Bebello delivered today. Used the 3 month rental from Baboodle.

My son is only bottle fed so we go through about 6 bottles a day. Using MAM bottles and spectra horns.

The first wash and sterilise cycle just got done.

Preliminary thoughts:

Cons: No UV sterilisation means I’ll have to find an alternative solution for the Nubi Rapidcool. Looks like it’ll need 2.5 ltrs of water for every wash cycle. Which to be honest seems close to or slightly more than what I would use handwashing the same set of bits and bobs. But I can already see myself dreading the tank fill before each use. But that’s more knit-picking. It looks quite chunky on the countertop due to its tall profile but again needs must. Ohh also the time - a drying and sterilising cycle is 55 mins vs 29 mins in the VitalBaby. Sterilise only is 10mins and needs water vs dry and 7mins in VitalBaby.

Pros: Washing seems effective. I purposely left one bottle with some formula powder at the base of the bottle. And it seems to have washed it off. The fatty layer which sometimes lingers on the inside of the bottles or horns after handwashing wasn’t there. I think the positioning really makes a difference. Also, it’s cavernous if you take away the bottle positioners. And this from the vital baby UV steriliser which I anyway thought was quite big.

Will keep you posted after a few days on how it goes. But so far it seems like the answer to my bottle washing woes. Between me and my wife we’re easily spending at least an hour a day just washing bottles and parts so this should be great.

Tbh the worst bit is taking the bottles apart and rebuilding after. The washing is the easy bit 😅. You can put most bottles in the dishwasher (make sure its clean, only washing bottles/Dummies and not mixing with your stuff and rinse after) then I either cold water sterilise or I have a steam steriliser. Honestly though I just wash them by hand. It takes a few minutes and we have enough bottles for 2 days which helps. A friend has the all in one machine and she says it wasn't great and ended up buying a separate sterliser and just washes the the bottles.

I found some good reviews on TikTok for the baby Brezza if you have it! They said they don’t feel it cleans well but interested to hear any more info!

The mam bottles can be sterilised on their own in the microwave. We just hand wash ours and then bob it in the microwave for 3 minutes. We do only use 4 bottles a day though

Look, a sterilizer is fine for, well, just sterilizing. But if you're talking about actually getting out of the kitchen, the bottle washer sterilizer combo is where it's at. We use Grownsy one, and honestly, it just gave us back so much time and mental energy. It washes, sterilizes, and dries. Three bottles a day might not sound like much, but when you're exhausted, that's three less times you're scrubbing. Not a luxury but definitely a sanity saver.

Washer for sure. We have the momcozy washer and it’s awesome. We only use the sterilize function for new items. (Our hospital told us we only needed to sterilize bottles / pacifiers once before use unless the baby was born early or has a compromised immune system)

You don’t actually need to sterilize so there’s no need for one. Only ger a washer if you’re not into hand washing. I hand wash everything and don’t feel like a bottle qasher would save me much time since disassembling then bottles to me is the most time consuming not the washing

I'd only get a bottle washer if I don't have a dish washing machine. I don't have a dish washer so washing bottles over and over and over and over AND OVER can be quite a burden..especially if it's those annoying Dr brown bottles with the little trinkets.

I bought a bottle washer and never looked back. It's been great and such a time saver. Plus the bottle washers also have a sterilize/dry function if you don't want ro give them a wash. I just used it all for the first 6 months sterilize/wash/dry. Now that he's older i don't bother sterilizing and just run a wash/dry cycle.

Just make sure you save some $$ so you can afford one.

Love my Baby Brezza bottle washer/dryer/sterilizer. So nice for pump parts and the occasional bottles. Saves me so much time. I also put pacifiers in there. It is a little loud, that is my only complaint.

My dishwasher has a sanitize function, so I use it to wash and sanitize bottles. However, it takes literally hours to get through a cycle, so I have a microwave sterilizer which only takes minutes - I use it to sterilize pump parts.

Ehh we sterilized everything once out of the package and now just use hot water and soap. I’m fine with it. Can’t imagine sterilizing on top of the constant bottle and pump cleaning.

I was all freaked about the sterilizer craze… but after a month of frantically sterilizing I decided that hot water, soap and friction were the old fashioned way and stopped being so frantic about a trend that doesn’t even exist everywhere. Kills germs perfextly

Used Baby brezza for my first child and will use it again for my second. So easy!

I have a microwave sterilizer and a drying rack for after. I only wish I had invested in an electric one with a dryer because I have cats who like to steal things off of my counters 🙃

UV steriliser - used it often 2x a day.

Milton Cold water steriliser is great. The liquid is great and is a versatile cleaning product by itself (especially if you want to deep clean water bottles or a tea pot)

The mini tabs are useful if you have the milton on the go dummy steriliser (also useful for nipple shields)

The microwave bags are good in a pinch and if you are away

Another vote for Milton cold water. It seems to be the method most often recommended by midwives and health visitors because it's really reliable and reduces the odds of burning yourself handling microwave sterilisers in the middle of the night on zero sleep (speaking from experience).

We had a dedicated bucket with a lid that we refreshed every day with Milton liquid. I never noticed any residue but tbf the bucket was only used for sterilising. I tossed everything in (bottles, pump parts, dummies, teethers) after washing, taking them out when I needed to use them. It only takes 15 minutes for something in the liquid to be sterile.

Milton also make wipes that are handy for on the go if your baby drops their dummy or you're uneasy using a changing station.

We used the Milton tablets and never had an issue with residue. I used them for everything.

Anything that's used for breast milk only doesn't actually need regular sterilising. I boil any new pump parts then just wash in hot soapy water.

We combo feed so use cold water steriliser for the bottles. It's really straightforward.

I never sterilized bottles except for the first time. We just wash them in the dishwasher which has a sterilize setting :)

I sterilized them when I first brought them home and haven’t done it again since. Little fella is 7 months old and fit as a fiddle!

I stop when baby is done with bottles 🤷🏽‍♀️ it doesn’t hurt to sterilize every time and I’d rather serve a tiny person with sterilized bottles than not.

I stopped at 2 months but my husband kept going until 3. By 6 months I was putting her bottles in the dish washer and just rinse them when they come out.

My 7 month old licks the floor and puts her mouth on pretty much anything she can get… and her goal in life is to make out with the dog (the dog is ready and willing 🤦🏻‍♀️).

I sterilize everything at the end of the day and keep it ready for the next. Sometimes a bottle doesn't get sterilized, I just wash it was warm soapy water and use it

Hey, we went with the tommy timmee UV steriliser and I loved it. Its big and really easy to use. It drys all the components as well. So glad we're done with that phase. The washing and sterilising is a never-ending ballache. The steriliser made it slightly less tedious

If you get the mam self sterilising bottles you just need a microwave

I always just used Milton cold water with occasional microwave bags if I was desperate and couldn’t wait 15 minutes or we were out

Tommee tippee uv 100%!! We run ours like ten times a day as it also dries stuff so perfect for my breast pump

Another vote for the tommee tippee UV steriliser. We also tried a hot water/steam steriliser but the bottles were always so wet and it needed cleaning so often. With the UV steriliser, you can get it to dry and sterilise the bottles and then go into ‘storage’ mode which will regularly re-dry and re-sterilise when needed. So low effort and well worth the money.

Does your dishwasher have a sanitize function? That’s what I do. If I can’t run a load of dishes every night for some reason I just use microwave sterilizing bags for bottles and pump parts. You can get those 20 use plastic steam sterilizer bags or there are also silicone ones you can use an unlimited number of times, I think my silicone one is haaka. Personally I wouldn’t buy some big bulky thing to wash/sterilize/dry stuff. I don’t know what’s actually recommended but I personally only sterilize everything for the first few months unless baby is high risk for infections or something.

Edit: the cdc recommends sterilization once a day for babies under 3 months. So I personally wouldn’t invest in something like that with only one function if it’s only going to be used for such a short time. Just use microwave steam bags or the dish washer with a sanitize function.

I'm really not sure if a washer/sanitizer is necessary if you have a dishwasher. If I were to do it again, I would buy some of the microwave steaming bags for my pump parts and throw all the bottle pieces into the dishwasher.

I had two full-term babies and also did just fine with hot water and soap! I was gifted a sterilizer for baby 1, used it maybe once or twice, and decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Kids are now 5 and 2 and doing just fine :)

Dad of two here. We used a microwave based sanitizer after doing hand wash of bottles/nipples/caps. I think we got a used one on FB Marketplace for like $20, and sold it on for the same after we were done with it. Pretty straight forward, you wash and rinse well, then just load them into the sanitizer. Pour in the amount of water into the base (I looked up the instructions online since it didn't come with the instruction manual) and it was something like 2 minutes in the microwave, then let it sit for 10, and then you can pull them and use them immediately after.

The thing you're going to really spend money on is new nipples (both as flow rate increases and as they age out) and bottle brushes- we probably went through ~5 per kid, as you want to change them every few months.

Most people stop sanitizing after a certain age, but my wife was a super producer of milk and donated a lot of it, so we kept up the sanitizing the entire time she was pumping. Small sacrifice of my time (I was chief bottle washer) to help others given that she was putting in the time every 3 hours through the day with a pump.

We have the Philips Avent - SCF293/00. I will say we use Dr Browns bottles (narrow neck) and the bigger ones don't fit straight up. We bought this one because my husband gets a decent employee discount on Philips. It's not really a problem, since I breastfed we usually only had 1 bottle (max 2) per day and we'd just put that one at an angle. Worked fine; but it's something to consider (we didn't think about that upfront). Otherwise this one is great!

Sterilising all bottle feeding and pumping equipment is standard until 12 months in Australia as well, though the midwives told us we could ease off once they’re four months old and start licking the floor. We sterilised all bottles and boiled all water for formula until our eldest was about eight months old and eating food regularly.

I'm in the U S. and I do this too... I have a baby brezza dryer/sterilizer so all I have to do is wash and scrub.

I also boil water when I make my formula bottles for the day.

Better safe than sorry.

It depends on your water quality. I live on well water with poor quality so we sterilized our bottles after washing until we had a filter put in.

As in a sterilizer? I'm from the Netherlands, here it's recommended to sterilize bottles daily until baby is 6mo. Additionally, I breastfed for a year, so sterilized my pump parts daily (as recommended by the brand). We weren't thrilled about throwing them in the dishwasher (though no judgement if you do), and having the countertop full of drying parts after sterilizing was driving me crazy. We have a sterilizer+dryer and it's one of my favourite baby-related purchases! You wash them, throw it in there and less than an hour later everything is dry and ready to be cleaned up.

So do you NEED it? No, not necessarily. But I LOVED it!

Soap and water normally do the trick, but I did sanitize everything before using it the first time and after trips until about 4-6 months old. I just got one that goes in the microwave. The bags work GREAT in a pinch.

I did sanitize my pump parts though.

I didn't buy a sterilizer. My little one spent time in the NICU, where they washed all bottles with soap and water. If it was good enough for the NICU, it was good enough for me at home.

With the baby, who has time? I just hand wash my bottles or when the dishwasher is almost loaded, I just throw them in the dishwasher. In the end, I'm so glad I didn't waste any money on sterilizing stuff.

Unless your child has a special need, I’d put a sterilizer firmly in the “not needed” category. Washing stuff with regular soap and water is plenty! The world (including a mother’s breast) is not sterile and bottles don’t need to be either.

My daughter was mildly preemie and even our docs and Lactation consultant didn’t recommend a bottle sanitizer. They weren’t against it but saw no reason for it. We do use the dishwasher because we are lucky to have one and it has a sanitize setting. But it’s not really necessary for daily use unless doctor recommends for baby with immune issues. If it makes you happy go for it but we’ve never missed it.

Nay. for what it's worth - our hot water runs really hot, so I just rinsed things in that! LO hasn't gotten sick aside from whatever goes around daycare, so I figured we're ok. lol

I birthed and formula fed 2 babies (now age 4 and 2) and I never actually "sterilized" anything. Just hot soapy water, bottle brushes etc. I guess I'm a renegade.