Baby bottle washer: worth it, or a 200 euro gimmick?

Twins, so twelve bottles a day. The countertop bottle washer machines (wash, sterilise, dry) are all over my feed. Anyone actually own one? Is it faster than the dishwasher and a brush?

From the hygiene side first: for healthy full-term babies, hot soapy water with a bottle brush, a proper rinse and air drying is what the guidance asks for. Sterilising after every feed is recommended mainly for newborns, premature babies and babies with a weakened immune system; after the first months, clean and dry is the standard.

So the machine is not buying you safety you could not get with a brush. What it buys is time and consistency: it does the brushing, the hot rinse, the steam and the drying in one go, hands-free, and it does it the same way at 3 a.m. as at noon. With twins that is not nothing.

What to check before buying: does it fit your bottle brand and the pump parts, how long is the cycle (some are 90 minutes end to end), how loud is it, and how easy is it to clean the machine itself, because a wet machine that is never cleaned grows the thing you were trying to avoid.

A dishwasher with a top-rack basket does most of the same job if you already have one; the machine wins when you do not, or when the dishwasher runs once a day and you need bottles every three hours.

Non-parent design note: the ones with a drying cycle that you can start separately are the useful ones. Otherwise you end up with a basket of clean wet bottles at exactly the wrong moment.