Bottle warmers.....are they any good?

[collision]

Ds2 is 11 weeks old and I feed him with EBM at night. He likes his milk quite hot and I have been taking the kettle to bed with me to heat it which is a pain.

I want to get a bottle warmer but dont know if
a) they are any good
b) which one to get and if they are expensive or not.

Will get it when I am in the UK in a couple of weeks. Any ideas?

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MNHQ

i bought a bottle warmer before dd was born and only used it once!! took too long to warm up imo, i used a flask thing for bottles which i bought from boots was £10 and was a godsend!! used to fill it up and take that up to bed with me also took it out with me out and about, much prefered that to a plug in bottle warmer!!

xx

Too late for you Collision because he has already got used to warm milk, but advice to anyone else out there expecting a baby that has not yet arrived - never warm their milk in the first place and they won't expect it. Ds drinks his milk at room temperature and has never known any different. I mix cooled boiled water with formula as and when he needs it.

i know its wrong but i heat mine up in the microwave. if you shake it it shouldnt have any hotspots.

i had a bottle warmer and it took ages and got all manky really quickly. jugs of hot water take took long

IME they take too long to heat up. We used to take a flask of boiling water up to bed with us and heat it up with that. Agree with the otheres though about training your DS to drink it cooler - perahps a little bit each time
(here speaks the woman whose 3y old DS still insists on warm milk )

If you're an Avent fan, like me, and you must have a bottle warmer, get theirs. However, when your baby is screaming blue murder from hunger at 2am, it seems to take forever to heat up. I ended up mixing the formula before bed, storing it in the fridge and bunging it in the microwave. This can be dangerous, for obvious reasons, but if you are careful to establish the correct temp, time and power and then to vigorously shake the bottle before giving it to the baby, you're safe. Just to be sure, shake a few drops on your wrist before feeding.

I have an Avent bottle warmer you could have if you wanted it, it's hardly used because dd didn't have EBM very often - she preferred me!

my avent bottle warmer tended to heat the milk to the temp of molten lava so we gave up on that pretty fast.

DS always has his milk room temp or colder

we used to use a bottle warmer but as sansouci said... when dd/ds screams blue murder it feels like eternity and back. We're not microwave culprits and shake the bottle well for ds. DD drinks it at room temperature.

I think I've read somewhere that breast milk can't be microwaved because it 'breaks' it. Don't know whether that's true though or whether that's just to discourage mw use

i also had an avent bottle warmer and found it heated the bottles too much... a jug of hot water is much easier, but to be honest, jessica has had room temp bottles since 4 weeks old!

I got the Avent bottle warmer and found it hopeless so gave up on it after about a week.

same here mines been used about 3 times in 6 months

DD has breastmilk at room temp (when it's EBM)

If you want a boots bottle warmer you can buy mine!

IMO its quite good, but tbh I don't really know as ds won't drink warm milk, only cold milk. He's a strange baby...

Well I used a boots own brand bottle warmer and quite liked it tho it does take @5mins to warm milk up to sufficient temp from chilled. Def better than boiling a kettle tho also remember using a flask of hot water and jug which worked just as well tho was slightly messier and I seem to recall having to replace the water in the jug at least once to get milk to sufficient temp. HTH!

The Avent bottle warmer is good - but don't leave in for too long as milk can get really hot!

This must be a good one as it is the one used in the parent room of my local John Lewis and Boots (they don't use their own - therefore make up your own mind what they are saying about the Boots branded one).

My own thread has made me laugh! With ds1 he always drank room temp milk and I cannot imagine why I havent done the same with ds2!

HMCarefully......you have saved me a tenner and he is going to have to get used to room temp milk!! Thank you!!

hmc, I tried to give ds2 milk at room temp but he literally won't let the teat in his mough if he feels it's not warm. Thought it was because I was mixed feeding and he got his breastmilk nice and warm. Would love to know the secret of getting him to take it cooler!

collision, if you find he won't take it cool, what I do is this: before going to bed take a flask of boiling water and an old Tesco fresh soup tub upstairs. When ds2 wants his night feed: warm milk from fridge in the microwave (I know, I know, but I give it a good shake and have never had any problems). Then if bottle needs to be kept warm while I am burping ds, pop it into the tub and pour in hot water from flask. The flask and tub are used for outings too.

John Lewis flask with holder for a bottle - can't recommend highly enough - transportable too for hols and trips!

I don't think bottle warmers are any faster than using boiling water but can see why using the kettle in bed is a pain.

It is probably best not to use the microwave as it destroys some of the nutrients in ebm (this isn't an issue for formula as far as I know).

Also breastmilk can be left out of the fridge unlike formula so you can warm it from room temp rather than chilled.

We use a wide necked flask which we half fill with boiling water then when babe wakes put bottle in and put lid on top but not closed IYSWIM It heats really quickly. We are using narrow bottles tho and not sure if the flask would take wide bottles like avent.

so and so. i use the avent bottle warmer but it takes 4 mins to warm up - depending on the size of the bottles as 4oz ones takes 4 mins but 9oz ones takes 9 mins !! my DP uses hot water in a jug and put bottle in it

4 minutes is a looonnng time to listen to a baby scream! Avent should take note that almost all of us who've used their bottle warmer find it heats it too much. Wouldn't it be great if it had an automatic switch-off when optimum temperature was reached? Or, (now I'm really dreaming!) that it would keep the bottle chilled until activated by baby screams and then heat up super-fast? I've also heard that breast milk shouldn't be microwaved but I would never store ANYTHING liquid at room temperature. Even sterilised, there are still some airborne bacteria present which multiply much faster at room temp.

Got the boots own one as a gift when DD was born, used it once. Until she was about 2 months we used the jug of boiling water but found it a bit hit & miss sometimes. Microwave is best as far as I'm concerned. Have a few practice goes to get timing right & shake well. I'm being pessimistic as DD would not entertain cold milk & still won't 3 years later. She must have an asbestos mouth as she quite often hand's it back to get it hotter. I just go into kitchen & press micro button a couple of times & bring it back.