how long do bottles stay sterilised?

[bobbybrewster]

I think the tiredness is really setting in and I'm getting confused about everything now, lol...

Just a quick one about sterilising bottles. At the moment I sterilise a fresh one before each feed, do I have to do this or can sterilised bottles remain ok in the steriliser after the lid has been opened (steam or microwave steriliser)? I'd understood that once the lid has been opened the bottles need to be used fairly soon after but my mum came over and started questioning it and now I've got myself in a pickle. Thanks for your help!

 

[LoobyLou75]

I have a steam steriliser which only keeps things sterilised for 3 hours. I too wondered about the resterilising every time once it's been opened and what I do is sterilise a couple at a time and then assembled the bottles making sure they are sealed tight and I have 2 bottles ready for when I make the next 2 feeds up.

 

[suzib76]

once you lift the lid they are no longer 'sterile' but tbh they are very very clean and should be fine, i have days where i havent poured all her milk into bottles and i just take one out at a time, but i have never resterilised them

 

[jenny82]

At the minute we have 5 bottles and LO has 5 feeds per day.

I wash and sterilise all the bottles every night, put them all back togehter again and stick them in the cupboard. They are then used as needed. Our steriliser instructions said that as soon as the steriliser was open, they were unsterilised - but this is baloney as far as I've been told. They are sterilised for 24 hours..

 

[bobbybrewster]

Thanks for the advice ladies. Feeling much more confident to sterilise and leave out for a few hours now, rather than feeling like I need to sterilise a new bottle each time.

 

[W8TS0N]

We have a water/tablet style tommee tippee sterilise unit we keep all our bottles in there until we need one, at night we make 3 bottles up before bed and keep them in the fridge

 

[Dinks]

We sterilise all the bottles and boil the kettle at the same time. When the bottles have been sterilised, we fill the bottles with the correct amount of boiling water, put the teats and lids on and cool in cold water. We then put them in the fridge until we need them. We don't keep them for longer than 24 hours.
We add the powder when we need it and re-heat in a bottle warmer.