Bottles, warmers and sterilisers (view report contents)
Cold water sterilisation
You make up a solution by dissolving sterilising tablets or adding a type of bleach to a large quantity of water in a container. You then immerse the bottles and teats, rings and caps. All the items have to be completely immersed with no air bubbles. They should be soaked for at least 30 minutes. Then rinse everything in cooled boiled water before using it. The bottles will stay sterile in the solution but it should be changed every 24 hours. This involves emptying 5 or 6 litres from the container each day. The Mothercare cold water steriliser had drainage holes to help with emptying.
There are sterilising kits which are a sterilising tank and a few tablets to start you off. The 'starter kits' also include feeding bottles. The cold water only sterilisers generally took six bottles and teats, caps etc. Many of the microwave sterilisers could also be used for cold water sterilising although none could sterilise six bottles by this method.
PROS
- Easy to load and unload
- No electricity needed
- No heat so no chance of burning yourself.
CONS
- You have to reach into the sterilisers to fish things out of the sterilising solution
- Everything has to be rinsed in boiled water before use
- You have to change the solution every 24 hours
- A steriliser full of solution can be extremely heavy and awkward to empty.
The following sections provide more detail about sterilisers, including the pros and cons of different types. Click on the list below to see the section you are interested in:
Cold water sterilisation
Steam sterilisation
Microwave sterilisation
Steriliser buying guide
Steriliser summaries
Report Contents
About this guide
Feeding bottles
Bottle Buying guide
Bottle Warmers
Bottle warmer buying guide
Preparing baby milk
Sterilisers
Steriliser buying guide
Steriliser summaries
Helpful Organisations
Suppliers list
