Tell me your experience-

Hi all,
I'm peeking over from the 'expecting' side, trying to get prepped for my girls. I am 28 wks and am looking into bottle warmers and bottle sterilizers (the microwave kind). How much did these 2 items help you or how much did you not need them? (I will be strictly bottle-feeding). Thanks.
Amy

 

we never used bottle warmers. We used the nursery water straight from the jug at room temperature. I also just wash the bottles in hot soapy water.

 

I don't have one and never felt the need for it. We just put a cold bottle in a cup of hot tap water to bring it up to room temp.

And I wash bottles in the dishwasher, I don't have a sterilizer. Boil them in water before the first use, but after that just soap and water or dishwasher is plenty.

 

I have never used either. We give bottles at room temperature...so just leave their water on the counter. And just use warm, soapy water to wash bottles.

 

I also warmed bottles in a cup of hot water, and washed them in the dishwasher.

-Rachel

 

We have a bottle warmer and periodically it isn't warm when I want to warm a bottle. I thought I had a faulty one, but the new one does the same thing. It kind of defeats the purpose of the bottle warmer. Now I just use hot water from the tap and it's just as fast. I only sterilize bottles and nipples the first time I use them. Otherwise, I use the dish washer or hand wash them.

 

Used it once thinking it would be a great time savor, realized it wasn't. It's just as easy to use warm tap water. Or fill up two big cups of hot water and put the refrigerated bottle in that and go change them. By the time I get back the milk has warmed up.

The warmers you have to use a certain amount of water to warm it and I could never remember how much.

 

QUOTE
We give bottles at room temperature...so just leave their water on the counter. And just use warm, soapy water to wash bottles


Same here. Also, once a week I try to boil the nipples for 5 minutes.

 

We just warm bottles in a cup full of hot water, like others have said.

We do use our sterilizer about 1/month though and sterilize all the botttles and parts. We could just do it in a pot of boiling water, but we find it easier to pop them into the sterilizer and just let it run in the microwave (it takes about 5 minutes, then has to cool a bit), so we can be doing other things and it doesn't matter if we lose track of time or get called away by a couple of crying babies.

 

We just warm bottles in a small pan, have not used our bottle warmer yet. I just use soap and water to wash bottles and try to boil nipples once a week (though I cannot say it happens every week...)
Here is another tip courtesy of DH, we use an ice cream scoop to push up the bottle liners to get the air out of bottles. It's quicker then hands!

 

Buy a pack of the microwave sterilizer bags. Each of the bags can be used about 20 times, and they take up SO much less space. As for bottle warmers, personal preference...

 

Never had either!

 

Never had either one!

 

Save yourself the headache and just give your babies either cold or room temp water. It will be so much easier in the long run when you have to go out and about or travel or are tired. I did this with my twins. I actually each day mixed a small pitcher of formula for the girls so it would be ready to eat. They loved it cold because of that. It made it easier for me and got them used to it with no hassles.

 

I exclusively breastfeed (rarely even pump) and I use my sterilizer all the time. I sterilize pacifiers with it several times a week, and when I do pump, I sterilize the pump parts with it.

 

I never had either one and didn't miss it

 

I either nurse or give them EBM so the bottle warmer is handy. It takes so long for the water to heat up from the tap in my house that the bottle heats much faster with the bottle warmer. As for sterilizing, get the microwave bags. If your babies come early, you will need to sterilize everything. If they're essentially full term, it's really not necessary to sterilize.

 

I have 2 bottle warmers and use them, though not sure why. They don't work that well! I sterilize by boiling and wash in dishwasher.

 

QUOTE(allboys @ Apr 17 2008, 08:15 PM) [snapback]726965[/snapback]
If your babies come early, you will need to sterilize everything. If they're essentially full term, it's really not necessary to sterilize.


I was never told to sterilize anything (except when we had thrush) and my babies were early.

 

I sterilized all bottles, etc., in boiling hot water prior to first use. After that I just used the dishwasher with the sanitize function on. Never used a separate sterilizer.

As far as warming bottles. We used powdered formula with room temp water - works like charm and much cheaper that regular liquid formula or concentrate!
My SIL had a warmer and it never worked properly and took forever to warm!

 

We had a bottle warmer in the beginning but "if I knew then what I knew now" we would do what we do now...got that...we just put the water in the microwave to get the chill off the water if we have any. Other than that, we fill jugs and keep at room temp. I would never have used my warmer.

Sterilizer never used, we use hot soapy water and if you want you can always pour boiling water over the nipples after they are washed.

 

These are my 2nd and 3rd kids, and I have never used either of them. I was bottles in hot soapy water- and we use water right from the tap.

 

[SIZE=10pt]We didn't use bottle warmers or sanitizers.

We wash the bottle with warm soapy water.

As for water...we made the mistake of using warm water from the beginning (per the NICU nurses) We've been trying to 'break' that for a few weeks. Some days are better than others. I wish I would have just used room temperature water from the beginning <_<

April [/SIZE]

 

thanks everyone for your great information so far. i have a question for those who said they make a pitcher of formula... how long can a pitcher of formula sit at room temperature safely? thanks.
amy

 

I used them for about 2 weeks and then stopped because they can make the bottles to hot. I had an avent bottle warmer and it worked well until someone forgot the bottle. I just stopped using it and went to the microwave. no more than 15 seconds for a 6oz bottle and no more than 20 for a full bottle. but I usually just nuked the water not the formula. the warmer takes about 5 to 10 minutes to warm the bottle anyway. It is definitely up to you, but I personally didn't like using mine.

Good luck on your choice!
Meshell

 

Room temperature bottles here. Hot soapy water to wash bottles.

Dianna

 

I made pitchers of formula sometimes. I am pretty sure it needs to be refrigerated after like an hour or so, just like any other formula once opened/mixed.

Honestly, the easiest way if you are using powder is to pre-fill all your bottles with water and leave them on the counter. Get one of those formula dispensers and fill up all the compartments with however much formula powder you will need. When you need a bottle all you need to do is pour in the powder (already pre-measured) shake and feed. It doesn't get any easier than that! And when you have a crying hungry baby or two or three on your hands it is a lifesaver. Good luck!!

 

QUOTE(Dianna @ Apr 18 2008, 01:06 AM) [snapback]727358[/snapback]
Room temperature bottles here. Hot soapy water to wash bottles.

Dianna


same here ~ I do use my microwave sterilizer every couple weeks though & run everything through it (i mostly use it for paci's though)

 

We make a days worth of bottles and throw them in the fridge. They do fine with cold milk. If they're ok with either cold or room tempurature milk, then go with that- it will save you tons of time and headaches in the long run! I hand wash their bottles in hot soapy water and throw the nipples in boiling water every once in a while. Good luck and congratulations on your twins!!

 

QUOTE(foppa2102 @ Apr 17 2008, 04:24 PM) [snapback]726517[/snapback]
Hi all,
I'm peeking over from the 'expecting' side, trying to get prepped for my girls. I am 28 wks and am looking into bottle warmers and bottle sterilizers (the microwave kind). How much did these 2 items help you or how much did you not need them? (I will be strictly bottle-feeding). Thanks.
Amy


Bottle warmers seem useless to me because they only warm one at a time. And I have never sterilized or boiled anything (also use tap water for their bottles). So I would say skip both but others might have other opinions.

 

I wash all my bottles in hot, soapy water. We do use bottle warmers, because our girls really like their formula warm. (Also, we are still using all of the liquid formula we got from the hospital and in the mail, so it needs to be warmed a bit after we get it out of the fridge.) We have two of the Walmart brand bottle warmers, and find them to be fast and easy to use. At night we fill six bottles and put them in the fridge. We bring the warmers upstairs to our bathroom and keep two bottles on warm for when the girls wake up to eat. This saves precious sleep time! After they eat I just run downstairs and grab two more bottles out of the fridge and put them in the warmer for the next time they wake for a feeding. It is a system that seems to be working really well for us. In the hospital they use room temperature formula, but I felt like I should warm it a bit. They were so small, and not eating well at first...

All my other children were breastfed, and when they took they occasional bottle we found the warmers handy then too.

 

Didn't use either.

I warmed their milk in the microwave to only a very low (just over room temp) temp and then transferred it to a drop-in and never had a hot spot problem. You do have to be careful though!! From what I hear the bottle warmers are just too slow when dealing with hungry twins!!

I did sterilize for the first couple months but I just used a pot.

 

My little ones have never had a warm bottle....ever. So I didn't use/get a bottle warmer.

and bottles take such a short amount of time to wash if you clean them every time....so honestly none of that stuff was worth the money to me.

 

I could never go back after using the microwave! We have made up formula and frozen it in ice cubes. If you over microwave a bottle then we just pop in a ice cube. It's really fast to cool down. I totally agree that a bottle warmer is just to slow!

As for sterilizers I've got three. Our NICU said to sterilize until the girls are crawling. Three made the process so much faster as I have alot of bottles! I've never seen sterilizing bags here - they sound like a great idea.

 

We used bottle warmers at first, but it was almost impossible to get the bottles just the right temp. We'd swear we were doing the exact same thing each time, but sometimes they'd be cold and sometimes they'd be boiling. We finally gave up and started running very hot water from the tap into a pan, then sitting the bottles (cold from the fridge) in the pan for 5 minutes. It was much more reliable, and didn't take any longer than the endless futzing with the bottle warmer did.

We washed all bottles and nipples in the dishwasher on the "sterilize" setting. We had two days' worth of bottles, so we only had to run it once a day.