Sterilisers & distilled water

We use distilled water only but also get the brown residue after awhile. When it gets like that, I run it empty (no bottles) with vinegar instead of water in the reservoir, then wipe it out with paper towel or cloth once it cools enough that I can touch the liquid. It looks like it's ruined at first to be honest but then wipes away. Warning though, run it when the LO is not present because the vinegar is pungent when warmed up.

Distilled water will help reduce the residue, but eventually it’ll need to be cleaned again. It’s annoying, but necessary. I don’t believe the regular bottles of water (drinking water) is distilled.

Adding that I guess you can avoid using distilled water but it will need to be cleaned more often. We ran out if distilled the other day and it gets brown MUCH faster with tap vs. distilled. I think it's just dependent on how often you want to run that cleaning cycle to help determine how often you're buying single use distilled bottles. Good luck!

This is why I threw mine away and now I just use Milton tablets to sterilise!

Thank you so much everyone! Super helpful. 🙏🏽

Distilled only because tap with create build up but I preferred a different one over this because ours had a drying setting that heated and dryer the bottles once we decided to stop sterilizing