Sterilising and my experiences
Even though I desperately wanted to breastfeed, it was not to be. Although I know that there will always be a sceptical midwife who will doubt that I really gave it my all, my husband and I (and my son if he could talk) would testify to this. Unfortunately Noah was unable to latch. This was partially due to a very sore head in the very beginning from being pulled out with forceps after getting his rather large head well and truly stuck under my ribs; and this event had also caused the nerve leading to the tongue to be compressed, causing him to “chomp down as opposed to suck” as the nursing specialist put it. My milk also never came in properly and although I expressed milk for 13 weeks, I could never really give him enough and had to resort to daily formulae top ups. Eventually the physical and emotional torment of trying to force my screaming son to try and latch every feed grew too much and when my milk supply diminished to less than 15 mls in a half hour expressing session, the benefit seemed to outweigh the effort.
We had bought the Avent Electric Steam Steriliser on special when we were pregnant and started using this to sterilise the bottle and breast pump. I have to say that it did the job and I do not want to run the product down as Philips are a good company and have really good products, but this is my personal experience and if I were to advise a friend on where to save money, this would be one tip. Firstly, although the system claimed to run an 8 minute cycle, the cycle from switching on to switching off was closer to 17 minutes. I used the right amount of water as per the supplied plastic jug with water measure mark, so this cannot be user error. Secondly, if you were in a hurry to use a bottle, even with using the tongs provided, the steam was still very hot. Finally, logically the bottles only stay sterilised until you open the steriliser. This means that you cannot prepare bottles on demand and either have to make them in advance or have to constantly run the steriliser. Because my expressed milk varied in amount, advanced preparation was not an option for me and this meant that the electric sterilising option would have continued to be an expensive option with the price of electricity these days.
A friend of mine suggested using the old trusted sterilising fluid option and I am so glad that she did. All it took was a large Tupperware container (we used a deep bowl with a recessed plate on top to keep the items submerged in the beginning), water and sterilising fluid. You can buy a 1 litre bottle of Milton for approximately £2.40 and as you only have to use 30ml per 5 litres of water, this will last you over a month. Some shops also sell their own branded fluids that can cost even less. We eventually purchased a Milton sterilising container that can hold up to six bottles at a time and clearly marks the water fill line to either 2.5 or 5 litres for convenience and this cost just over a tenner. This system takes 15 minutes to sterilise and the same solution can be kept for up to 24 hours. The beauty of this cheap and simple method means that you can keep adding and removing items as and when you need them.
Another benefit that I would not have been aware of otherwise, was that the steam steriliser seemed to cause the teats and particularly the flexible moulding on my expensive breast pump to perish quicker than using the fluid steriliser. I had to actually source and replace these parts quite early on and when I changed sterilising methods, they remained in good condition for much longer and are in fact, still in working order.
Another much lesser consideration that I should mention, is that although the two items take up roughly as much space as each other on my kitchen counter, I can choose where to place the Milton container as it does not require access to a plug socket. This in my specific kitchen, where sockets are at a premium, is quite a bonus.
