Avent Express Microwave Steam Sterilizer

While researching the best baby bottles, I came across this product. I thought to myself, "well it doesn't hurt to add it to my registry". I am glad I did.

As a new mom, everyone tells you the importance of sterilizing baby's bottles, nipples and pacifiers. I wasn't planning on sterilizing many bottles because I thought breastfeeding would help me skip this annoyance. However, I had forgotten that once I went back to work, I would need bottles to feed baby my expressed milk. So, on top of having to sterilize baby's bottles, I would also have to sterilize my pump's collection bottles and pumping kit. This is why putting the microwave sterilizer in my list was a good decision.

Can you imagine having to boil more than 10 bottles, breasthields, nipples, valves and pacifiers every time they were used? Imagine having to stand right next to the boiling pot to make sure nothing melted or got damaged in the process? Well, the microwave sterilizer helped me simplify the sterilizing process.

What you get...
The sterilizer is an approximately 10" round 2" deep platter with a clear plastic dome cover about 7" tall. It has a blue plastic insert with holes and slots to place bottles, nipples or breast pump accessories. It also brings a small white plastic clamp to help grab hot small objects after sterilizing and the instructions manual.

Operation...
Operation requires a microwave. Before loading the bottles and utensils for sterilization, the platter must be filled with exactly 7 ounces of water (distilled water preferred but not required). Loading the bottles isn't difficult as the blue insert has about 4 crescent shaped slots that holds them in place. The instructions show an explicit diagram on how to correctly load bottles, nipples and caps. Nevertheless, I must add that I was able to load more than 4 bottles (about 8) at the same time, without using the slots. Once the bottles are placed inside the platter on top of the blue insert, the dome cover is ready to be placed. If it doesn't close, the bottles need to be rearranged or it is overloaded. The sides of the dome snap into the platter when closed. If the dome is not closed correctly, the sterilization process may be rendered useless. Once the dome is closed, the sterilizer can now be placed inside the microwave. Sterilization times vary depending on the microwave's wattage. Mine is an 1850 W microwave, thus it only needed 4 minutes. The instructions tell you the amount of time for your particular microwave's wattage.

At the end of the 4 minutes, the instructions recommend to let it stand for 2 minutes closed, to allow for cooling and completion of sterilization process. It may still be very hot, so caution is necessary when removing the sterilized items. This is where the white clamp may be useful.

What I would change...
I would like a bigger sterilizer. The size is good enough and it may be the best according to the size of most microwaves, but a little bigger version wouldn't hurt. Specially for moms like me that have tons of stuff to sterilize at one time.

Why buy...
It is a fairly inexpensive sterilizing system. It is the most convenient and fast way of sterilizing baby's bottles and utensils. Eliminates the need for boiling and potentially damaging some plastic utensils. Very easy to use and store.

Note: Make sure to check if the utensils you are going to sterilize are microwave safe before putting them inside the sterilizer... I found this out the hard way. I placed a water filled teether in it... This is me being dumb and clueless, not the sterilizer's fault