The thought of sterilising my breast pump at work was problematic. We’ve got a microwave steriliser but it’s bulky; I could take it to the office and just leave it in my locker but that wouldn’t leave me any space for the six pairs of shoes I keep there. Then there’s the issue of whether it’ll actually fit in the microwave; the steriliser won’t fit in ours at home. My only solution was the little sterilising box that came with my first breast pump. It’s compact and fits in our tiny microwave. Of course if I took that to work then we wouldn’t have anything to sterilise bottles with at home and I wasn’t about to buy a second (fairly naff) pump just to get the box that came with it.
Luckily Lindam have thought of this issue and make microwave steriliser bags. Ideal for travelling, each bag fits two bottles and accessories and can be reused up to 20 times. Fill with 70ml of water, pack the bag, seal and microwave for three minutes in a 500-1000w microwave. Hey presto, bottles sterilised.
Lindam sent me some microwave steriliser bags to review. My biggest concern was whether the bag would be large enough to contain my breast pump parts, some of which aren’t exactly the shape of standard bottles. I also wondered how easy it would be to drain off the water after after use, whether the bag would actually stay shut and how to record how often each bag had been used.
The bag fitted all the parts from an Avent single pump however I could only get the larger part of a Tommee Tippee manual pump in the bag and would have had to use two bags to fit the remainder of the attachments inside. I easily fitted two standard neck bottles into the bag but was unable to sterilise a mOmma bottle as the weighted bottom would not allow the bottle to sit in the direction indicated. The bag is only big enough to fit one wide neck bottle in.
The bag was initially quite tough to open and I was rather worried I’d break it in the process. Once I did open the bag though it was clear that it would take a fair bashing before it would rip or split. The zipper is really secure and I wouldn’t worry about it opening on its own. The bag has a small hole at one end (on the seam so it doesn’t actually provide an entrance in to the bag) to allow it to be hung for drying and another the other end for an exhaust and to allow you to drain off the water. There’s also a handy counter you can mark off so you know how many times each bag has been used. I attacked a bag with a sharpie and it seemed to suffer no adverse effects. The bag also has full instructions on the back so you don’t have to worry about others not knowing how to use it when you’re not around. Useful for when you send the baby off to the grandparents.
As long as you don’t have a large number of items to sterilise at once the bags are great. They’re particularly useful in that they don’t take as long to use as many microwave sterilisers or even electric sterilisers. As they’re so light and compact they’re great for travelling and are perfect for pumping mamas to sterilise breast pump parts while out of the house. I’ll definitely be buying more bags once this pack has run out.
Lindam microwave steriliser bags are available in packs of three with an RRP of £5.49.
