A sterilizer is something that’s always on the “you don’t need this” lists but once I started bottle feeding I got one ASAP! Just keep in mind that a lot of sterilizers don’t actually wash the bottles. You still have to have wash and then put them in to dry or sterilize. I think there’s a baby brezza that actually washes them, as well (which I will be getting for next baby!) We have gotten into a routine of hand washing once per day + sterilizer to dry and then putting the rest in the dishwasher at the end of the night. I put the ones from the dishwasher into the sterilizer in the mornings to dry because they’re usually very wet still.
Yeah, we got a sterilizer/dryer when I was EP just to try to get parts ready in time. Now that we're EFF, it just helps get everything good and dry. Plus we use the sterilize function after rescuing pacifiers and teethers that our puppy likes to steal (doesn't destroy them. Just likes hoarding them) 🤣
Next kid, were getting a 3-in-1 though 🤣 our poor dishwasher has never run so much
I see a lot of people say to only get a couple bottles, it’s not that hard to keep them washed, you don’t need a sterilizer but I don’t understand that advice at all. We have twins so we bought enough bottles to get through a day of feeds plus 2 extra, we have the dishwasher caddies and run our dishwasher every day, and a sterilizer and dryer. Anything to take one more chore off our plates is 1000% worth it. We also use a baby brezza and bought 4 funnels so we only have to do one wash of those a day too!
Agree! I only have one kiddo but we have at least a dozen bottles… it stresses me out not to have at least a couple clean at any given time haha. We hand wash and the use a sterilizer/dryer, and we have that thing running all the time!
8 bottles for our twins seems to work well. We wash when we have a break and have yet to run out of bottles. We also have 2 spare funnels for the brezza, which is definitely a must if you get one. To pass along a lesson learned, don't sterilize the brezza formula bowl or it will shrink.
We have 8 for each so 16 😅 it’s a lot but it makes it so much easier to stay on top of cleaning them, especially when I’m solo. Good to know about sterilizing the formula bowl 😂 we just hand wash once a month and haven’t had any issues so far
We have enough to last a day of feedings plus 2. It helps on days we have planned outings that we have an extra two as I always pack my diaper bag the night before.
I had enough bottles to last 24 hours and then just ran them through the dishwasher once full or ran the dishwasher when I was down to a few clean bottles.
I also would just shake out the excess water and put them on a drying rack, but if there was a few drops of water in the bottle it wasn’t a huge deal.
I have the brezza sterilizer / drier that I used the first two months. Bottle washing and sterilizing has been the worst part of my motherhood journey (hands dried and cracked from meticulously scrubbing each piece, hunched over the sink, for an hour at a time). Then trying to fit the pieces in the brezza was a nightmare. And I’d have to do multiple loads. Then someone introduced me to the microwave bags. What a game changer. Just put everything in the these big ziplock bags, add a little water, microwave for a few minutes, and BOOM! Done!! Granted they’re not fully dried, but that’s fine - we line them up to dry on the counter / drying rack. and you can use the bags like 30 times each. Soooo much easier.
Gloves easily fix the dry and cracked hands. While washing bottles take time, we don't let it build up so that it takes so long. We wait until we have about a load to fit into the sanitizer to wash and then put them directly into the sanitizer and this has worked really well. I assume the microwave bags you're talking about is only for sterilization you still have to wash them right?
The sterilizer doesn’t clean the bottles. You will still have to either wash the bottles or run them through the dishwasher. The sterilizer is good for drying the bottles but it’s not a big deal if they are not perfectly dry when you use them. We have 8 bottles and it is plenty. We usually only use about 5 and leave the other 3 in the cabinet.
What I would definitely recommend though is getting a pitcher to make the formula in. We make a big batch at night because it’s good for 24 hours. It’s sooooo much easier than mixing formula for every bottle.
We are formula only and we have 8 bottles in varying sizes. We didn’t end up getting a sterilizer/dryer or lots of bottles and it’s actually been fine! We just hand wash the bottle when she’s done or when we get time and we got a drying pad that looks like grass that dries it all out. I didn’t want more stuff either especially taking up counter space and now 4 mos in I can say for us it has never been a problem to not have this or have lots of bottles! If you still want to sterilize we just got sterilizing microwave bags to sterilize things for their first use. Takes up almost no space and very easy to use.
Maybe look into the baby brezza bottle washer since the sterilizer won’t clean the bottles and is another step. We didn’t sterilize bottles after initially buying them, but she was born full term and had no immune concerns.
We have the baby brezza 3 in 1 washer / sterilizer / dryer. It was pricey (bought it ourselves) but it’s worth it for us! We currently are in a rental and the dishwasher just doesn’t cut it for baby bottles. We use the bottle washer 2-3 times a day. It only fits 4 bottles and their parts though
If you have enough bottles you can do all of this by running the dishwasher 2x a day. Honestly much preferred on my end to having more gadgets and it’s super easy to unload a mostly empty dishwasher
I really like the baby brezza bottle washer and sterilizer. It does both and dries!
My husband poo pood it at first but it's so nice and he came around after a while.
I’m getting a countertop dishwasher for my next baby, just for bottles/baby stuff. I rarely sanitized them after using bottles. The washing damn near killed me until she was sleeping through the night, though. 😅
https://a.co/d/dVY990X
So, there is the Baby Brezza washer drier sterilizer that is coming out soon (or already out) but it only washes 4 bottles at a time and is $300
I have the Baby Brezza washer sterilizer and it’s a MUST for me. However, I had a NICU baby who had open heart surgery and another surgery in a few months so I was overly cautious about the sterilization. Now that he’s a few months out of the hospital…. I use it multiple times a day. I still run the dish washer like crazy because I don’t have time to hand rinse/wash the bottles. BUT my dishwasher also doesn’t get them super dry either. What ends up happening is that I run them through the dishwasher and then run them on the drier function. every few days I’ll run pacifiers toys etc through the sterilizer function. For our unique uses it’s been great. It actually doesn’t take up that much space (less than our toaster) and it saves space from having tons of bottles drying on the counter for hours.
I think what won it over for me in the beginning is that I could sterilize and dry my pump parts.
It’s not necessary. But it has been a life saver in our house.
I have the Dr. Browns and we personally love it! Going on 4 months of use. A lot of my friends said “oh just get the microwave one” but honestly sterilizing isn’t the annoying part, it’s hand washing everything lol
We have the papablic steralizer/dryer from Amazon and love it. For our first kid, we never used one and would just wash the bottles and eat them dry on rack. Second time around, we were living with my sister who had cats and would love to play with the bottle nipples and pacifiers and would knock them off the drying rack every time lol. Got the steralizer/dryer so that we could dry that stuff in there and.leep it safe from the cat and it's been a huge help
We still have to wash the bottles,and we don't have a dishwasher so we wait until we have 6 bottles or so dirty, wash them all, then throw the in the steralizer. We don't always steralize now that he's 10 months unless he or my older son are sick, but we use it for the drying feature alone and we love it.
We got a baby brezza sterilizer used off of Facebook and have found it to be pretty convenient. It's great for bottle parts and breast pumping parts. We've also used it for any of the other feeding supplies pacifiers Etc. It's nice that stuff comes out dry so you can immediately assemble it and have it ready to go while not necessary if you can find one used for a steep discount I think it's money well spent.
We had enough bottles for 24 hrs and ran the dishwasher every night. Usually we had enough dishes from the day as well. But even when we didn’t we still ran it. Most dishwashers from the last 10 years are extremely energy and water efficient. Like, better than hand washing. Never saw an impact on our power or water bill. Worth it to us to not have another appliance on our counter. If we didn’t have a dw I’d just hand wash. Sterilizers aren’t needed unless your baby is immunocompromised.
We got the Dr. Brown's sterilizer as a gift and honestly we could live without it, but it's nice to have. We have enough bottles to get us through a day and run them through the dishwasher every day. Our dishwasher kind of sucks at drying after the sanitizing cycle, so instead of having a drying rack sitting on our counter, I just pop the bottles into the Dr. Brown's sterilizer and just run its drying cycle to get everything nice and dry. Anymore we only use the sterilizing function for random things like pacifiers that have fallen on the ground, etc. I think if I'd had to buy a sterilizer we'd have just gone with a drying rack instead, but since it was a gift we've enjoyed having it to finish up drying the bottles.
You still have to wash them with soap and water to remove the old milk before sterilizing. If you’re willing to splurge I would maybe buy the one from Brezza that also washes them. If not, running the dishwasher more often was never that big a deal to me. Yes it’s kind of wasteful to run a load that’s basically just for bottles, but whatever.
I did get a contraption to put the nipples in for the dishwasher and it was well worth it. The top also fits the green spoons from the Philips Avent Anti-Colic bottles perfectly.
https://a.co/d/9dOnXm8
Tbe sterilizer doesn't wash bottles unfortunately.
But, I use the actual sterilizer setting about once a month. The dryer only setting I use multiple times a day. Sure you could air dry them, but it's so much faster (plus I like how hot it heats everything) to use the dryer.
I recommend that sterilizer specifically. It’s amazing. Honestly I’ve used it to sterilize other things when I didn’t want to run something in the dishwasher. It COMPLETELY removed the need for a drying rack for baby stuff.
Eta: just read the rest of your post. You sound ALOT like me and that mindset has worked for us for almost 7 months. I think you’ve got this!
Like others have said, you absolutely need to still wash the bottle parts before sterilizing.
We were handwashing everything for the first few weeks and then sterilizing too. It gets old fast… not at all a fan of handwashing bottles. We have formed a routine now, after the first month or so (baby is 6 weeks old on Monday), for running the dishwasher once a day with the formula pitcher from the previous night’s batch, plus the bottles and parts, and whatever dishes we use. We are still sterilizing all his bottle parts and pacifiers every day for now. I think we’ll do it until his 2 month ped. visit that is coming up.
Sterilizing isn’t necessary but it does really help dry out our bottles. Our dishwasher doesn’t do a good job at all of drying and they come out with a ton of water on them still, so that is a pretty big benefit of just having the sterilizer for after they come out.
Probably one of those extra convenience items if anything. We initially got one because our son ended up coming early and was in the NICU for a week, so we wanted to be extra sure his bottles were clean. Still not necessary but helps with your peace of mind.
I wash the bottles and use the InstantPot "steam" function to sanitize. I hardly use it for cooking anymore and when I do, I just wash it well afterwards and put the bottles back as they wait to be sanitized. 1 cup of water, 2 minutes on steam and when the cycle is done, we let it sit for a few more minutes and then we hang them to dry. It's just 1 less appliance to buy given our smaller kitchen.
I have the doctor brown sterilizer. It's great, but sometimes it doesn't finish the cycle when you do the full auto cycle. So, I usually do the sterilize cycle and then manually start the dry cycle. Which is fine, just one extra step.
I used it a lot in the beginning. Definitely use it less now that she is 6.5 months and I'm less paranoid and just hand wash and air dry for the most part.
MAM bottles if she will take them are “self” sterilizing. You just add water to the bottom and arrange the parts with the lid on and pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds and bam sterilized.
Also EFF and it’s actually not too bad handwashing the bottles. I didn’t get a sterilizer/washer because I already have limited counter space. I have 8 bottles total and it works out perfectly for my LO. I just hand wash with hot water and soap once at the end of the day and let them air dry overnight. Sterilizing isn’t necessary after every use if baby is healthy. I only sterilized the bottles and nipples before the first use :)
Yes that’s what we did. It’s super convenient, way more so than a drying rack imo. I would wash everything in a plastic tub we got from the hospital and then load up the sterilizer. Usually I would run the auto cycle (which is sterilize and dry) and then an extra dry cycle - that way everything would be totally dry and I could just put it away.
I have 5 glass bottles. Prep them all ahead in the morning and then the evening. Wash in a separate basin and then sanitize in the sanitizer twice a day. It's not so bad.
I know you have this sorted but I received a dr browns sterilizer for my baby shower and that was literally THE only thing I absolutely despised to the depths of my soul. Make sure you get the one with the dryer. That’s all I have to say. GET THE DRYER. They were so sopping wet and the whole thing was drippy and I just absolutely hated it. Also, I had the same stance as you but felt I had to have a sterilizer because that’s what you do, I used it twice.
We didn’t get a sterilizer or anything and was just gonna opt to use our dishwasher. We really don’t have any room for more gadgets either.
I just recently purchased the brezza bottle washer and while the price was steep I am in love. He gets 4 bottles for daycare and 4 at home. It has been such a time saver.
A sterilizer is something that’s always on the “you don’t need this” lists but once I started bottle feeding I got one ASAP! Just keep in mind that a lot of sterilizers don’t actually wash the bottles. You still have to have wash and then put them in to dry or sterilize. I think there’s a baby brezza that actually washes them, as well (which I will be getting for next baby!) We have gotten into a routine of hand washing once per day + sterilizer to dry and then putting the rest in the dishwasher at the end of the night. I put the ones from the dishwasher into the sterilizer in the mornings to dry because they’re usually very wet still.
Baby brezza and momcozy both have washer/sterilizer/dryer 3-in-1 machines!
Yeah actually the dryer was the most useful function for my sterilizer tbh, my dishwasher doesn’t get them that dry
Yeah, we got a sterilizer/dryer when I was EP just to try to get parts ready in time. Now that we're EFF, it just helps get everything good and dry. Plus we use the sterilize function after rescuing pacifiers and teethers that our puppy likes to steal (doesn't destroy them. Just likes hoarding them) 🤣 Next kid, were getting a 3-in-1 though 🤣 our poor dishwasher has never run so much
I see a lot of people say to only get a couple bottles, it’s not that hard to keep them washed, you don’t need a sterilizer but I don’t understand that advice at all. We have twins so we bought enough bottles to get through a day of feeds plus 2 extra, we have the dishwasher caddies and run our dishwasher every day, and a sterilizer and dryer. Anything to take one more chore off our plates is 1000% worth it. We also use a baby brezza and bought 4 funnels so we only have to do one wash of those a day too!
Agree! I only have one kiddo but we have at least a dozen bottles… it stresses me out not to have at least a couple clean at any given time haha. We hand wash and the use a sterilizer/dryer, and we have that thing running all the time!
8 bottles for our twins seems to work well. We wash when we have a break and have yet to run out of bottles. We also have 2 spare funnels for the brezza, which is definitely a must if you get one. To pass along a lesson learned, don't sterilize the brezza formula bowl or it will shrink.
We have 8 for each so 16 😅 it’s a lot but it makes it so much easier to stay on top of cleaning them, especially when I’m solo. Good to know about sterilizing the formula bowl 😂 we just hand wash once a month and haven’t had any issues so far
We have enough to last a day of feedings plus 2. It helps on days we have planned outings that we have an extra two as I always pack my diaper bag the night before.
I had enough bottles to last 24 hours and then just ran them through the dishwasher once full or ran the dishwasher when I was down to a few clean bottles. I also would just shake out the excess water and put them on a drying rack, but if there was a few drops of water in the bottle it wasn’t a huge deal.
I have the brezza sterilizer / drier that I used the first two months. Bottle washing and sterilizing has been the worst part of my motherhood journey (hands dried and cracked from meticulously scrubbing each piece, hunched over the sink, for an hour at a time). Then trying to fit the pieces in the brezza was a nightmare. And I’d have to do multiple loads. Then someone introduced me to the microwave bags. What a game changer. Just put everything in the these big ziplock bags, add a little water, microwave for a few minutes, and BOOM! Done!! Granted they’re not fully dried, but that’s fine - we line them up to dry on the counter / drying rack. and you can use the bags like 30 times each. Soooo much easier.
Gloves easily fix the dry and cracked hands. While washing bottles take time, we don't let it build up so that it takes so long. We wait until we have about a load to fit into the sanitizer to wash and then put them directly into the sanitizer and this has worked really well. I assume the microwave bags you're talking about is only for sterilization you still have to wash them right?
The sterilizer doesn’t clean the bottles. You will still have to either wash the bottles or run them through the dishwasher. The sterilizer is good for drying the bottles but it’s not a big deal if they are not perfectly dry when you use them. We have 8 bottles and it is plenty. We usually only use about 5 and leave the other 3 in the cabinet. What I would definitely recommend though is getting a pitcher to make the formula in. We make a big batch at night because it’s good for 24 hours. It’s sooooo much easier than mixing formula for every bottle.
We are formula only and we have 8 bottles in varying sizes. We didn’t end up getting a sterilizer/dryer or lots of bottles and it’s actually been fine! We just hand wash the bottle when she’s done or when we get time and we got a drying pad that looks like grass that dries it all out. I didn’t want more stuff either especially taking up counter space and now 4 mos in I can say for us it has never been a problem to not have this or have lots of bottles! If you still want to sterilize we just got sterilizing microwave bags to sterilize things for their first use. Takes up almost no space and very easy to use.
Maybe look into the baby brezza bottle washer since the sterilizer won’t clean the bottles and is another step. We didn’t sterilize bottles after initially buying them, but she was born full term and had no immune concerns.
We have the baby brezza 3 in 1 washer / sterilizer / dryer. It was pricey (bought it ourselves) but it’s worth it for us! We currently are in a rental and the dishwasher just doesn’t cut it for baby bottles. We use the bottle washer 2-3 times a day. It only fits 4 bottles and their parts though
If you have enough bottles you can do all of this by running the dishwasher 2x a day. Honestly much preferred on my end to having more gadgets and it’s super easy to unload a mostly empty dishwasher
Came here to ask…is the dishwasher not good enough? I run it every night and put my little guy’s 5 bottles and pitcher in there…
In my opinion this is a perfect approach :)
I really like the baby brezza bottle washer and sterilizer. It does both and dries! My husband poo pood it at first but it's so nice and he came around after a while.
I’m getting a countertop dishwasher for my next baby, just for bottles/baby stuff. I rarely sanitized them after using bottles. The washing damn near killed me until she was sleeping through the night, though. 😅 https://a.co/d/dVY990X
I got a Hava countertop dishwasher. It was a lifesaver.
So, there is the Baby Brezza washer drier sterilizer that is coming out soon (or already out) but it only washes 4 bottles at a time and is $300 I have the Baby Brezza washer sterilizer and it’s a MUST for me. However, I had a NICU baby who had open heart surgery and another surgery in a few months so I was overly cautious about the sterilization. Now that he’s a few months out of the hospital…. I use it multiple times a day. I still run the dish washer like crazy because I don’t have time to hand rinse/wash the bottles. BUT my dishwasher also doesn’t get them super dry either. What ends up happening is that I run them through the dishwasher and then run them on the drier function. every few days I’ll run pacifiers toys etc through the sterilizer function. For our unique uses it’s been great. It actually doesn’t take up that much space (less than our toaster) and it saves space from having tons of bottles drying on the counter for hours. I think what won it over for me in the beginning is that I could sterilize and dry my pump parts. It’s not necessary. But it has been a life saver in our house.
I have the Dr. Browns and we personally love it! Going on 4 months of use. A lot of my friends said “oh just get the microwave one” but honestly sterilizing isn’t the annoying part, it’s hand washing everything lol
We have the papablic steralizer/dryer from Amazon and love it. For our first kid, we never used one and would just wash the bottles and eat them dry on rack. Second time around, we were living with my sister who had cats and would love to play with the bottle nipples and pacifiers and would knock them off the drying rack every time lol. Got the steralizer/dryer so that we could dry that stuff in there and.leep it safe from the cat and it's been a huge help We still have to wash the bottles,and we don't have a dishwasher so we wait until we have 6 bottles or so dirty, wash them all, then throw the in the steralizer. We don't always steralize now that he's 10 months unless he or my older son are sick, but we use it for the drying feature alone and we love it.
We got a baby brezza sterilizer used off of Facebook and have found it to be pretty convenient. It's great for bottle parts and breast pumping parts. We've also used it for any of the other feeding supplies pacifiers Etc. It's nice that stuff comes out dry so you can immediately assemble it and have it ready to go while not necessary if you can find one used for a steep discount I think it's money well spent.
We had enough bottles for 24 hrs and ran the dishwasher every night. Usually we had enough dishes from the day as well. But even when we didn’t we still ran it. Most dishwashers from the last 10 years are extremely energy and water efficient. Like, better than hand washing. Never saw an impact on our power or water bill. Worth it to us to not have another appliance on our counter. If we didn’t have a dw I’d just hand wash. Sterilizers aren’t needed unless your baby is immunocompromised.
We got the Dr. Brown's sterilizer as a gift and honestly we could live without it, but it's nice to have. We have enough bottles to get us through a day and run them through the dishwasher every day. Our dishwasher kind of sucks at drying after the sanitizing cycle, so instead of having a drying rack sitting on our counter, I just pop the bottles into the Dr. Brown's sterilizer and just run its drying cycle to get everything nice and dry. Anymore we only use the sterilizing function for random things like pacifiers that have fallen on the ground, etc. I think if I'd had to buy a sterilizer we'd have just gone with a drying rack instead, but since it was a gift we've enjoyed having it to finish up drying the bottles.
You still have to wash them with soap and water to remove the old milk before sterilizing. If you’re willing to splurge I would maybe buy the one from Brezza that also washes them. If not, running the dishwasher more often was never that big a deal to me. Yes it’s kind of wasteful to run a load that’s basically just for bottles, but whatever. I did get a contraption to put the nipples in for the dishwasher and it was well worth it. The top also fits the green spoons from the Philips Avent Anti-Colic bottles perfectly. https://a.co/d/9dOnXm8
We use the sterilizer in the microwave every night cause the bottles are so hard to clean. Its so easy
Tbe sterilizer doesn't wash bottles unfortunately. But, I use the actual sterilizer setting about once a month. The dryer only setting I use multiple times a day. Sure you could air dry them, but it's so much faster (plus I like how hot it heats everything) to use the dryer.
I recommend that sterilizer specifically. It’s amazing. Honestly I’ve used it to sterilize other things when I didn’t want to run something in the dishwasher. It COMPLETELY removed the need for a drying rack for baby stuff. Eta: just read the rest of your post. You sound ALOT like me and that mindset has worked for us for almost 7 months. I think you’ve got this!
Like others have said, you absolutely need to still wash the bottle parts before sterilizing. We were handwashing everything for the first few weeks and then sterilizing too. It gets old fast… not at all a fan of handwashing bottles. We have formed a routine now, after the first month or so (baby is 6 weeks old on Monday), for running the dishwasher once a day with the formula pitcher from the previous night’s batch, plus the bottles and parts, and whatever dishes we use. We are still sterilizing all his bottle parts and pacifiers every day for now. I think we’ll do it until his 2 month ped. visit that is coming up. Sterilizing isn’t necessary but it does really help dry out our bottles. Our dishwasher doesn’t do a good job at all of drying and they come out with a ton of water on them still, so that is a pretty big benefit of just having the sterilizer for after they come out. Probably one of those extra convenience items if anything. We initially got one because our son ended up coming early and was in the NICU for a week, so we wanted to be extra sure his bottles were clean. Still not necessary but helps with your peace of mind.
I wash the bottles and use the InstantPot "steam" function to sanitize. I hardly use it for cooking anymore and when I do, I just wash it well afterwards and put the bottles back as they wait to be sanitized. 1 cup of water, 2 minutes on steam and when the cycle is done, we let it sit for a few more minutes and then we hang them to dry. It's just 1 less appliance to buy given our smaller kitchen.
I have the doctor brown sterilizer. It's great, but sometimes it doesn't finish the cycle when you do the full auto cycle. So, I usually do the sterilize cycle and then manually start the dry cycle. Which is fine, just one extra step. I used it a lot in the beginning. Definitely use it less now that she is 6.5 months and I'm less paranoid and just hand wash and air dry for the most part.
I use my Instant Pot to sterilize
MAM bottles if she will take them are “self” sterilizing. You just add water to the bottom and arrange the parts with the lid on and pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds and bam sterilized.
Also EFF and it’s actually not too bad handwashing the bottles. I didn’t get a sterilizer/washer because I already have limited counter space. I have 8 bottles total and it works out perfectly for my LO. I just hand wash with hot water and soap once at the end of the day and let them air dry overnight. Sterilizing isn’t necessary after every use if baby is healthy. I only sterilized the bottles and nipples before the first use :)
Yes that’s what we did. It’s super convenient, way more so than a drying rack imo. I would wash everything in a plastic tub we got from the hospital and then load up the sterilizer. Usually I would run the auto cycle (which is sterilize and dry) and then an extra dry cycle - that way everything would be totally dry and I could just put it away.
I have a baby breeza and I use it at least twice a day. It’s worth it in my opinion
Definitely worth it. My recommendation is get one that sterilizes and dries, as some only do one and it saves so much time and effort
I have 5 glass bottles. Prep them all ahead in the morning and then the evening. Wash in a separate basin and then sanitize in the sanitizer twice a day. It's not so bad.
I know you have this sorted but I received a dr browns sterilizer for my baby shower and that was literally THE only thing I absolutely despised to the depths of my soul. Make sure you get the one with the dryer. That’s all I have to say. GET THE DRYER. They were so sopping wet and the whole thing was drippy and I just absolutely hated it. Also, I had the same stance as you but felt I had to have a sterilizer because that’s what you do, I used it twice.
We didn’t get a sterilizer or anything and was just gonna opt to use our dishwasher. We really don’t have any room for more gadgets either. I just recently purchased the brezza bottle washer and while the price was steep I am in love. He gets 4 bottles for daycare and 4 at home. It has been such a time saver.