5 Important Things You Should Know When Using Bottle Sterilizers

The truth is that most of the parents are totally not sure all baby bottles are completely clean or not even if they have rinse and steam these bottles on a regular basis. Some parents also think that they just need to wash these bottles with soap or liquid and finish the cleaning process.

However, this cleaning process is not enough for babies. Your baby has an immature digestion system with the vulnerable immune system; it is easy to add much more harmful microbes to the little body through these bottles.

And sterilizing all bottles is a good way to ensure these are safe for your little one, but you should draw attention how to use the baby sterilizer bottles; especially if you choose the electric bottle sterilizers.

Fortunately, we are here to help you with 5 importance notes before using sterilizer bottles.

#1 – Consider the time for sterilizing

Before you use new bottles, you should sterilize all bottles, nipples, and rings in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes. Then, you lay them on a clean towel to dry these bottles. After the initial sterilizing, once they are used you should clean these in hot and soapy water. Also, you can use the dishwasher. 

However, there are two exceptions you may come across. Firstly, you may continue to sterilize all bottles when you have high-quality water condition. Secondly, you should not boil plastic bottles.

Plastic material probably contains many toxic chemicals after boiling such as Biphenyl A and other chemicals. Instead, you can clean these in the dishwasher.

Harmful ingredients can mix in baby’s milk or formula that you do not recognize and these will add to their digestion system as well as their bodies.

#2 – Do not forget to sterilize other things (nipple area, rings, etc.)

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You have sterilized baby bottles carefully, but your baby still has stomach flu, food poisoning, diarrhea, vomiting, Hepatitis A, or Rotavirus.

Do you know the reason why? You have forgotten to sterilize some feeding equipment. These are nipples, bottle rings, feeding equipment, pacifiers, and other breast pump parts.

#3 – Avoid using tap water to sterilize baby bottles

You might be surprised that you should not use tap water to clean and sterilize baby bottles. Tap water often contains a lot of contaminants which can leave a layer of salts under the bottle and other feeding equipment.

For this reason, instead of using tap water, use filtered water for sterilization. Even you are using a steam sterilizer, you will need to use filtered water to have full of protection.

#4 – Try to use the electric bottle sterilizers

With an electric bottle sterilizer, you will save time during the sterilization as the entire process will take about 12 minutes or less. Before using the machine and sterilizing, you need to check the equipment first.

In general, electric bottle sterilizers might keep six bottles at a certain time and these also have separate racks for other smaller equipment like nipples.

Put all the feeding equipment and baby bottles with putting these down in the electric bottle sterilizers to support the steam to sterilize the feeding gear effectively. 

#5 – Always washes your hands first

Your hands are a perfect living space for microbes that probably add more germs to baby bottles. Therefore, you should wash your hands carefully before touching all bottles from the sterilizer.

Using sterilized tongs to take all accessories and put these ready for usage on a clean surface or in the lid of the sterilizer is also a good idea to avoid using hands directly to pull out all accessories.

When sterilizing all bottles, you should not keep these out for long as germs and bacteria can return. At that time, you have to sterilize all feeding equipment again. This task will take you much time to re-sterilize them.

Once you finished the sterilization, you should store the bottles in a clean and safe space. Then, you just remove it before use.

Author Bio 

My name is Kristi and I’m a mother of 3 beautiful angels. I am also the founder of Intelligentmother.com. This blog was created in order to share my personal experiences in baby care and general health care for pregnant women. You can find many interesting insights on my blog and several problems solved! 

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