Cleaning Dr. Brown's Bottles?

Question

I just purchased Dr. Brown's bottles because my 3 week old daughter is spitting up a lot and has a lot of gas. In the directions it says to boil the nipple for 3 minutes for the first use only. It says to wash all the other parts in hot soapy water. It doesn't say to boil the bottles or all other parts to sterilize them before each use or anything. So my question is for the parents who use them, how do you clean them? Do you boil any or all of the parts or just wash them in hot soapy water (or both) prior to using them? Also, did they help with spitting up/gas with your child?

Answer 1

Good question! I actually was wondering the very same thing. They make it sound like just washing is enough, but that didn't sound right to me either.

I wash and sterilize the bottles after each use just to be safe. I didn't buy the Dr. Brown's sterilizer, though - I use the Avent one I had before I switched to Dr. Brown's.

Answer 2

I run them through the dish washer after I have used the bottle brush and the little tube brush. I bought some little baskets so I don't lose any parts BUT, here's the draw back... we don't have very many dirty dishes... SO, our dishwasher is only ran once every day or every other day... so my options were to buy more bottles OR buy the microwave sterilizer. the sterilizer is a doctor brown brand and holds EVERYTHING nicely: it is about $30 but also comes with two more bottles. the sterilizer works in THREE MINUTES.

In regards to your question about the spit up... I started out using Doctor Brown's bottles but ended up switching to Playtex Ventair when my baby was 6 weeks old. He was puking so much that the doctor wanted me to add a bit of rice cereal to each bottle. The doctor brown bottles couldn't handle the rice cereal (because of the vent system under the nipple)... my son is doing as well with the new ventair bottles as he was with doctor brown's. i do still use the doctor brown's for water or juice. i don't personally have a preference of one bottle over the other EXCEPT for the cereal of course.

Answer 3

I DID run into this problem for the first couple of months, and then we ultimately decided just to chuck the tubing in the garbage and use the bottles without it. My daughter was no more gassy becasuse of it, and it's saved me hours of cleaning those annoying tube parts. I honestly think they're a bit of a marketing ploy! The risk of giving him a little excess gas is small compared to feeding him from a potentially moldy bottle.

Answer 4

I wash them in hot soapy water and use that little brush that comes with the bottle to get into all the little places the regular brush can't get. they did help with my son but they are a pain to clean. You might want to try a diffrent formula too. My son drinks soy.

Answer 5

I just ran them through the dishwasher. My dishwasher also has a santizing option. So, everything got thrown in there. And, I just added the sanitize option after each use.

I loved these bottles. They helped my son tremendously. I never noticed gas, but he was cranky alot. These bottles were easy for him to hold onto as well. He liked being able to hold his own bottle.

Answer 6

I clean them by taking them apart and soaking them in very hot water and then cleaning them.