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When you have potentially premature newborn babies who are still building up their immunity for the first few months of their lives, ensuring their bottles are sterile for every single feed is incredibly important for their protection.
But finding a sterilizer that can stand up to the sheer amount of bottles and the accompanying parts needed to feed twins around the clock can be a tall order.
The Philips Avent Electric steam sterilizer is up to the task.
Spacious but compact
There's a reason Philips is the number-one brand recommended by moms worldwide.
This sterilizer's slim and space-saving design uses height to its advantage, giving it a smaller footprint and limiting how much counter space it takes up while still fitting underneath your cabinetry.
This means parents don't have to compromise how many bottles they can sterilize simultaneously while keeping their counters as decluttered as they can be when they have twins.
I was impressed with this sterilizer's capacity. Weighing six pounds, it's 11.9 inches wide by 14.8 inches tall. It's big enough to handle the number of bottles, tips, collars, and lids that come with feeding twins around the clock.
And the best part is that its ingenious and adjustable modular design has made it possible to have either a big or a small sterilizing compartment—or both stacked together for the ultimate sterilizing space—depending on how many things you have to sterilize at once.
So, you can configure the sterilizer as needed each time. Maybe you just need to run a quick cycle for pacifiers. Maybe you need more space to sterilize the breast pump parts or your little ones' plates and utensils. Or, perhaps you have to do everything at once, in which case, you can go with the full set-up that can accommodate six bottles and the accompanying accessories.
Side note: While the fine print says this machine fits up to six bottles and accessories, I can tell you from personal experience that I've fit up to eight bottles and accompanying parts plus soothers in the sterilizer without overloading it and it's worked wonderfully.
Quick and convenient
With the press of a single button, this electric steam sterilizer kills 99.9% of harmful bacteria in just 10 minutes total (four of which are used for the sterilizer to get up to the correct temperature) with natural steam created from the fresh water you place in the reservoir in the unit's base.
Knowing that no harsh chemicals are used in the sterilization process gives you peace of mind when it comes to feeding time that your babies will be drinking from sterile bottles.
A progress indicator light lets you know when everything inside is sterile, and the included tongs will help you quickly and safely remove two bottles and accessories if your little ones are hungry and need their bottles filled immediately.
If you opt to wait for the full dry cycle to complete (like, say, when your babies are sleeping and you aren't waiting anxiously for the bottles to be ready as fast as humanly possible), it takes 40 minutes to run the sterilization and dry mode, during which the contents inside are dried with hot, filtered air.
And as long as the lid stays closed once the process is complete, everything inside will stay sterile for up to 24 hours.
The drip tray built into the unit protects the sterilizer's heating plate from any leftover milk residue, preventing any undesirable burning smells.
Philips Avent Premium Baby Bottle Sterilizer with Dryer
This is the Premium Baby Bottle Sterilizer with Dryer by Philips Avent. It can sterilize up to six bottles and their accessories in six minutes (10 minutes, if you include the preheating time) and keeps the contents sterile for up to 24 hours if the lid remains closed.
The system's automatic shut-off feature means you can sleep easy for your power-nap session before your twins wake up without having to worry about turning the unit off once the cycle is complete.
And that feature, alone, is worth its weight in gold.
Did you have this sterilizer with your twins? Were you impressed at its capacity? Did you have a different sterilizer? What made it stand out to you? Let us know in the Comments section below.
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