Philips Avent Microwave Steam Sterilizer for Baby Bottles, Pacifiers, Cups and More (model SCF281/02)

Product Information

It takes one touch of a button to start a cycle and, if you have any accompanying Tommee Tippee bottles, each bottle is clearly marked to show how much water to add to the steriliser – a thoughtful touch that our tester really appreciated. Some parents have said they have to clean it frequently. One BabyCentre parent said: "We have to clean it quite often, just with white vinegar on the heat plate and wipe it round, but this may be due to the water in our area." There are four main sterilisation units on the market: cold water sterilisers, microwave sterilisers, electric sterilisers and travel sterilisers. They all have their own pros and cons. 1. Cold water steriliser Do you have enough kitchen counter space to keep a sterilising unit out all the time? Would you want to if you did? Electric units usually stay plugged in on the counter – they’re too large to store and too bulky for it to be convenient to move them often. The inner tray is formed with notches to position the four bottles it can hold, which means they’ll stay in place throughout the cycle and sterilise properly.

Nuby’s electric steam steriliser comes with a drying function so equipment can immediately be reused without having to wait for it to cool down or dry off. Our tester loved this feature and found it very useful. Versatility: If you want to use your sterilizer to clean pump parts, children's toys, or pacifiers, you'll need to make sure it can do so. These are what they use at my local LC consultation place. I used them when I pumped for my DD for 9+ months & have been using them for almost 3 mo now w/ DS. I have never had any problems, and they are so convenient!" I was also boiling bottles and parts to sterilize initially but now using avent microwave sterilizer (me also using avent bottles) and I would say its time saving and in love with that." But if you’re bottle-feeding full time or expressing breastmilk regularly, you should find each of the different modes very helpful – and the fact that the warming unit handles food as well as milk means it should continue to be useful, even once you’re done with sterilising completely.

6. Best self-sterilising bottles: MAM Easy Start Anti-Colic Bottles

It comfortably fits four bottles that aren't Tommee Tippee and we can squeeze five in. It's so handy if you're off somewhere and need to take it along to use as it's not too big."

The type of steriliser that’s right for you will depend on your baby’s routine as well as your environment, so it’s perfectly alright to wait till after the birth – maybe buying a box of sterilisation bags as an interim measure – and assess your sterilising needs in the days and weeks afterwards. It looks well-made, but isn’t especially designed for aesthetics, and it doesn’t come in any other colours. As it’s unlikely to stay out on the kitchen counter, though, this hardly matters. Is it good value for money? Transparency is really important to us and that's why we're always upfront about how we tested the products we recommend. We won't always recommend the cheapest products or the ones with the most extra features. We write about products that we feel offer the best value to most parents – the ones we'd recommend to our own friends and family. Electric steamer sterilizer: Simply plug it in and let the machine do all the work. In an electric sterilizer, the bottles and parts are cleaned at a high temperature to produce steam. Electric sterilizers come in many shapes and sizes, depending on your needs and countertop real-estate.If you’re bottle-feeding or expressing full-time, you’re likely to get through a large pile of equipment in a 24-hour period and you don’t want to spend all of it refilling the steriliser. As we aged out of sterilizing, we still valued the dryer. In 30 minutes, bottles would go from dripping water to dry, which helped when we needed to prep for the next feeding," says Bykofsky. "Pump parts fit in too, which was a godsend when I forgot to wash a pump part and had 30 minutes until the next session. We still run the dryer every night with toddler cups." Sterilizing method: Traditional sterilizers use steam to do the job; some plug in and sit on a counter, others go in the microwave. Some countertop sterilizers use UV light instead of steam to sterilize, but neither the AAP and CDC have weighed in on whether UV light works as well as steam to disinfect. The Philips Avent 3-in-1 steam steriliser is our favourite of the sterilisers the company makes. Their range provides every mum or dad with a version suitable for them, including a microwave option.