Do I need a bottle sterilizer if I have a dish washer ?

Question

Just wondering if it’s even needed ? I feel dish washer is the same thing? I can always just load the dishwasher with just bottle stuff , no dishes ?

Answer

It’s not necessary to sterilize bottles all the time. It’s recommended to sterilize them when you first buy them before using and that’s it. Using the dishwasher is great. I personally use just a wash bin that is only for baby bottles, pacifiers and breast pump parts and hand wash them. But I’m not a fan of washing plastic in the dishwasher.

Answer

You can also just boil a pot of water and submerge bottle parts for a few minutes. I’ve only hand washed my bottles and boiled them occasionally.

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I just use my dishwasher. At first i would wash everything in hot soapy water and then put everything in boiling water. But once i realized my dishwasher can wash and sterilize i stopped. Sterilizers are useful if you dont have hot heated drying cycle on your dishwasher.

Answer

I had one with my first. Used it twice. It’s a waste of time- first you handwash everything and then put it in the sterilizer, which just makes everything super wet and the moment you take it out, it’s not really sterile anymore. So I switched to the dishwasher. I run my dishwasher every evening so I wake up to clean bottles and dishes in the morning. I put my pump parts, bottles, etc in the dishwasher with our regular dirty dishes. For the small parts, I recommend getting a dishwasher basket.

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A lot of dishwashers even have a sanitize cycle! That’ll be good! I’m not sure about if you need soap or not. Or wash them prior then do sanitize with no soap? We personally use a microwave sterilizer container just because I’m paranoid about food particles

Answer

You don’t need a sterilizer. Buy the Medela sterilizing bags. 3 min in the microwave with some water sterilizes the contents, and you don’t have to have yet another piece of equipment sitting around. Each bag can be used 20 times: Dishwashers can sanitize if you use that mode. Only boiling or steam or a special machine is going to sterilize. Honestly, we only sterilize once a week and use the dishwasher the rest of the time.

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I used to just boil everything for 5 minutes

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The dishwasher is good enough. I however am choosing to go the microwave sterilizer route. My washer takes like 3 hours to run a normal cycle. And I have to wash them by hand first to get all the milk fat out of everything first any way. May as well pop it in the microwave once clean for a few minutes and use all that space in the dw for regular dishes. And I will have bottles on hand quicker. And I can use it for my pump parts too. The extra $20 is well worth it for me for all the time it will save.

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I’d still buy one, we have one and I did I don’t trust dishwashers not to be clean I plan on washing my bottles then sterilising them

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I don’t trust my dishwasher to be clean / sterile enough. It doesn’t have a removable filter to clean, and the spray arms often have food particles in them that I have to try to get out. I just wash bottles in hot soapy water and use microwave sterilizer