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Avent Microwave Steriliser
by Listerbelle
Microwave steam steriliser
When I was 37 weeks pregnant with our first child, I received a present from a friend of my husband: this Avent microwave bottle steriliser. Clearly she was unaware that I was a die-hard pro-breastfeeding advocate who would never need such a thing.
How wrong I was! This steriliser helped ... preserve our sanity!
For various reasons I needed to breastfeed our daughter every 3 hours for the first 6 weeks of her life, in addition to expressing (pumping) in order to maintain my supply.
Although designed for Avent products, we used this item to sterilise Dr Brown's bottles (easily fits four at a time) and various Medela expressing accoutrements.
The company website explains that the steriliser is made from BPA-free material, and the dimensions (166 (H), 280 (W), 280 (L) mm mean that it is suitable for most microwave ovens.
Just add enough water until the level marker is reached, load and place in the microwave for as little as 2 minutes. The exact length of the cycle will depend on the wattage of your microwave. After "microwaving", you then let the full sterilizer "rest" for 2 minutes.
The microwave steriliser has clips on the side for extra safety. The clips close the lid securely so hot water cannot easily escape when you take the steriliser out of the microwave. The side grips have also been designed to stay cooler to help you handle the steriliser safely.
Contents stay sterile for 24 hours if the lid is unopened. It can be stashed away in the microwave oven, or left on the bench - it's compact enough to be unobstrusive.
We are really fortunate to have received this as an unexpected gift. I note that at time of writing (April 2013) the steriliser is available for just GBP11.50 and free delivery via Amazon Prime, compared to its usual GBP26.
Ultimately, we used this sterilizer at least twice a day for nearly two years....and it's still going strong!
Highly recommended.
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Boots Steam Steriliser Descaler Sachets
by scooch12
My daughter's steam steriliser (which I'll add isn't a boots one!) states that it should be regularly descaled every 4 weeks, or even more often depending on the type of water at home. I descale ours on their advice every 4 weeks just to make sure it's kept nice and clean to sterilise the endless amount of bottles, spoons and cups that ... we get through on a daily basis. The website of the steriliser we have actually recommends to use these descaling sachets so naturally, these were the ones I made a beeline for. To be honest though, I had found that there was very little available (in fact none!) in Tesco that were designed for this purpose so I didn't exactly have a wide choice anyway. I bought mine on a 3 for 2 offer in Boots a few months ago - I'm part way through the third box now so they were a great buy. I'm sure they cost around £2.70 at the time per box, but looking on the Boots website today they are currently on sale at £2.99.
Packaging and contents
The sachets come in a small white box, the design being different to the picture shown - it is very plain white with small writing in grey. Within each box are 6 sachets that are in plastic wrapping. The wrapping isn't exactly ideal to me. There isn't a little nick in the side to help tear the top off and the plastic is fairly thick so can't just be ripped as I think it'd end up everywhere - in the end I've bought a pair of little scissors just to use for cutting it off. The sachets hold 10ml each and are around half full of the descaling fluid so you do need to be careful removing the top so that none spills out. The box states that the sachets contain lactic acid - it smells very strong and as soon as the top is off the whiff of it hits you! They are labelled as being irritant so have to be handled carefully and also kept out of children's reach.
Use
The box states to run a 5 minute cycle on the empty steriliser and then once complete, pour the sachet contents into the water in the steriliser, on our steriliser the water is held at the bottom. Then, close the steriliser and leave for 30 minutes until cool for it to get working. I usually make sure that I get to the empty steriliser pretty soon after it's finished it's cycle to add the sachet (although I leave it long enough so that it's not burning hot!) as otherwise the water has cooled too much for the descaler to work properly and the results aren't half as good. After the 30 minutes is up, I then rinse the whole steriliser very thoroughly all over with water, wipe it down with a cloth (where I find lots of brownish bits of limescale come off) and then run another empty sterilising cycle before using it properly again. It is a bit of a faff to be honest, taking around an hour on and off to complete until it's ready to use again. I always make sure I have sterilised everything I need for the day before I begin the whole process!
Do they work?
It brings our steriliser up a treat, I have to say that the results are good. Our steriliser builds up a brownish residue fairly quickly in it across the 4 week period, sometimes in-between descaling times I wipe over it to pick this up but some of the residue can be stubborn. After using this on a regular basis, I'd say on every occasion 95% of the brown residue comes loose and is easily wiped away with a cloth. There's just a little bit left in the tiny nooks and crannys of the inserts of the steriliser - to be honest though, this is mainly because it's impossible to reach them with a cloth so is really due to a slightly poor design of the inserts that the steriliser has.
Conclusion
As I say, ours is done every 4 weeks and I don't feel that I need to do it any more than this as long as I regularly also wipe over it with a cloth in-between cycles too. These steriliser sachets do claim that they help to prevent the limescale appearing but I don't think that this is the case, although obviously I can't confirm how much would build up if they weren't used at all. I use mine in the steps that they say on the back and although it does look very clean afterwards, they haven't made the steriliser limescale free like it says. I do wish though that a company, including others as well as Boots, would come up with a solution so that it effectively prevented limescale appearing as well as just removing it as this is quite a long winded process that has to be completed in order to descale. Alas though, perhaps I'm just a bit lazy!
I've used just over 2 boxes of the descaling sachets so far across 9 months - the directions say to use 1 sachet per descaling process so a box ends up lasting a long time on a basis of descaling on the timescales I use.
I would recommend using these sachets to descale a steam steriliser, they've worked well on our non-Boots steriliser, it does look bright again once used. They also come at a reasonable price, even better if you can grab them in offers that they sometimes have on too. I rate them 3 stars overall, just as the sachets can be a bit fiddly to open and I don't think that they prevent the limescale appearing as much as they should do.
Thanks for reading :o)
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Avent Steam Steriliser
by hlb2009
When Hope was a baby we had a different steriliser and it broke on us despite it costing £30 so when we were expecting baby number 2 we were a bit concerned about which steriliser to go for. There are so many different kinds all with various levels of practicality and all with varying price tags too. In the end we opted for this one ... because it was cheap, compact and fast.
I am very glad we bought it as it's been very reliable. It cost us just £12 and came with a couple of free bottles. The previous steriliser we had was so much more expensive and it broke after a short space of time. We use Dr. Browns bottles and this comfortably fits two of this in.
The machine is quite tall and thin so it doesn't take up much space on the kitchen side which is really important as we don't like having our sides full of clutter! It isn't attractive looking really, it's just plain white with an off blue lid, nothing special but nothing too in your face either.
It has two parts to it- the main bit and a shelf. This shelf fits onto a pole and holds things like dummies, teats and other smaller parts. Beneath this shelf is where you put the bottles facing downwards so that the steam goes into it. It would fit about 4 Dr Brown bottles in the main bit but only 2 of the Dr Brown parts in the shelf section.
To operate it you don't need anything more than water and electricity. Some sterilisers rely on microwaves or milton but not this one which is why we chose it so that if we are in a hotel room it's easy enough to use. You put in the 90ml of water, put the lid on and then press the button. This lights up and once it is ready the light goes out which indicates it's ready. I wouldn't ever take the lid off right away as it is very hot, I tend to leave it about 5 minutes to cool down a little as it can burn. The best thing about this steriliser is the speed at which it completes its cycle. If clean and not overflowed with water, it usually takes about 7 to 8 minutes which is so important to us as we don't bottle feed often as our baby was breastfed so when we did need to use a bottle we were never really organised and would have to sterilise at the last minute and it was good that it wouldn't take long to be ready.
A couple of negatives for the units; it does lime scale quite easily and does require cleaning every 3 to 4 weeks. The other down side we have noticed is that if you do use too much water, it collects quite quickly. It says you should use 90ml of water per cycle but it doesn't seem to burn this off every time. Every week or so, you will notice that there is about an inch of water in the bottom and that it does not operate as efficiently. So you do need to keep tipping water out and clean it. Cleaning it is easy enough with some white vinegar and a bit of a scrub then you just wash it out and have it do a cycle before using it with bottles.
We liked how easy this was to take it out and about as it was small enough to fit in a carrier bag so whenever we had a night away we could take it without it taking up a huge space.
I think for £15 it is a bargain, we have had it for 17 months now and it still works brilliantly.
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