'I'm a newborn mum and found the best shortcut to cleaning baby bottles'

A Townsville mum has proclaimed a product she’d never heard about as her best-ever baby purchase.

2 min read

November 6, 2023 - 10:53AM

Lifestyle

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When Jen began combination feeding her then two-month-old son, Austin, there was one task she dreaded every single day.

“I was hand washing all his bottles and they were piling up, every day,” the Townsville mum tells Kidspot.

“Then my husband would spend half an hour every night going through all the bottles, one at a time with a sterilising bag and the microwave. It was so time-consuming.”'

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The appliance makes cleaning bottles so much easier. Image: Supplied

There has got to be an easier way for newborn parents

When searching online for time-saving ideas, Jen discovered another parent raving about a benchtop dishwasher which could sanitise bottles.

“I thought, ‘What the heck?’” the 27-year-old, who has a daily routine of breastfeeding, pumping and bottle feeding, says.

“I never knew these things existed.”

After further research, Jen decided on the Midea brand of mini dishwasher, which retails for $400.

“At that point, I didn’t care how much it cost,” the mum-of-two quips.

“I just wanted to make my life easier.”

While she purchased it from eBay, it’s also available from Big W, Amazon and Catch.

The dishwasher, which takes two hours per bottle washing cycle - is often used twice a day by Jen and her husband - in the morning to clean overnight bottles, and in the evening for those used during waking hours.

One full load fits eight of Austin’s bottles, plus all of Jen’s breast pump parts.

“All I need to do is rinse them out and stack them, and it does the rest,” she says.

“It even has a fan that makes the plastic come out dry, which I found inconvenient about our normal dishwasher.”

It takes five litres of water per wash, and water can either be plumbed from the house mains or as Jen does, manually filled for each load with regular cold water from the tap.

“It drains into a bucket where the kids can’t access, and we just tip it out after,” she explains.

How's this for a newborn feeding station set-up? Images: Supplied

A time-saver for new parents

Jen is fully aware that the dishwasher’s function is to sanitise - and not sterilise.

With sterilisation, the water temperature is usually above 130°C, and sanitisation is often 75°C or hotter or warmer. Sanitising reduces microorganisms to a safe level, while sterilising removes all microorganisms from an item.

“For our baby, who is in good health and not underweight, we have been advised that sanitising is fine,” the cautious mum says.

With Austin now five months old and continuing to mix feed, Jen is confident her new purchase will remain her most useful baby product ever.

“I tell my husband multiple times a week that it’s the best money we’ve ever spent,” she says.

“And he agrees.”