The ultimate travel item for baby (Boots Steri-Bottles)

Member Name: aflynn

Product:	Boots Steri-Bottles
Date:	10/06/01 (169 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good for emergencies!, good for travel

Disadvantages: none so far!

I had a coupon for a free Boots Steri-bottle in the pack I received from the hospital. I never used it because to be honest I thought these bottles were a complete rip off. I mean who is going to pay for a bottle that has to be thrown away afterwards?

Anyway, that was before the day that there was a communication breakdown in the Flynn household. There we were in the middle of town with Ciaran screaming blue murder, when Mr F and I had a discussion about who had forgot to put a bottle in the changing bag. What were we to do? Ciaran was not impressed, usually at the stage of going purple; a bottle was seconds away – but not today!

I suddenly had a brainwave! - Boots Steri-bottle. So off we went (ran!) to get some, along with a ready-made carton of milk.

They come in packs of 4 for £1.99 or 24 for £6.99, and are available with two size teats – medium and fast. The size of the bottle is 250ml (9oz). There is also a four pack available of 125ml (5oz) bottles available at £1.89. Each bottle is wrapped individually with the top facing inwards. This is the only part that I find a nuisance, because when you open the wrapper the top can fly out, rendering the bottle useless. The pack says that the bottles are suitable for 3 months onwards – I think this is because the medium flow teat is quite fast compared to others and a smaller baby might have difficulty with the flow.

The bottles are designed so that once you tighten the lid it cannot be opened again. This is to stop the bottle being used more than once for obvious reasons. (Although Mr F did try to find a way around this when he saw the price – tightwad!). The teat is covered by a top, which allows you to make up bottles in advance, and they can be stored safely in the fridge. These bottles cannot be heated in a microwave, due to the type of plastic used in the bottle. You can only heat the feed using an old-fashioned jug and hot water! <
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The best part of the bottle I think is the teat. It is amazing. It is similar to an Avent teat in the fact that it is wide, but the teat part is much shorter. It is very flexible, and in my mind is the nearest teat to a real breast that I have ever seen. If boots decided to make these teats for normal wide neck bottles they would be the only teats ever used. I have had a lot of trouble with Ciaran getting used to teats but he took to this one no trouble.

The bottles are made of recyclable plastic, so they can be put into plastic recycle bins, although I would have to use them regularly every day for me to make the effort to store them for recycling. Maybe boots could have containers in their stores for collection!

But, for sheer versatility these bottles are worth the money. I am going to take them on holiday, to use on the journey. If you use the ready-made cartons of milk, the bottle can be prepared literally minutes before a feed is due. In my mind this is fantastic because being somewhat paranoid about milk and its tendency to go off, I cannot find a better way to feed baby on your travels. Again the bottle is brilliant for emergencies where you have forgotten to make up a bottle or like in my case to put it in the bag. As long as you’re by a Boots baby need never turn purple again!!

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