The Tommee Tippee bottle warmer makes a repeated process simple. When you have a child, anything you can find that helps you save time is valuable because you will never have enough.
For the first nine months of my first baby, I warmed a bottle under the tap and sat it in a warm bowl of water. This worked fine, but it wastes a lot of water, including hot water. It also took quite a while. Not only is the water slow to heat where I am, but it still took a few minutes in a bowl of warm water. At nine months, even knowing our child was getting towards the end of bottles, we bought a bottle warmer, and we wished we’d done it sooner.
Systems like the Tommee Tippee bottle warmer give you the opportunity to take some valuable time back. Fill it with water, drop the bottle in and let it go. This is even easier if you are trying to heat frozen milk, which we used to have to remember to put in the fridge overnight.
Why not use the microwave
Many people believe a microwave is an easy option. There are several risks to be aware of.
- Controlling the temperature inside a microwave is difficult, increasing the risk of overheating the milk.
- Microwaves don’t heat evenly. You will have experienced this if you have warmed a lunch, but the inside is cold. This inconsistency can cause localised overheating of the milk.
Because of these two issues, it is possible you may burn your baby, or destroy the valuable proteins or immunological elements. These are the greatest benefits associated with breast milk.
Features
The Tommee Tippee bottle warmer had some outstanding features:
- Fits virtually any bottle or food pouch because of its wide mouth.
- No risk of overheating milk which preserves important nutrients.
- Allows warming refrigerated or frozen milk.
- Heats a bottle in as little as four minutes.
How it performs
Tommee Tippee advertises 4 minutes to warm a bottle, but how is it in reality? Well, a 180mL bottle from the fridge (~3oC) took 6 minutes and 45 seconds to warm. While waiting, I did a nappy change, with no concern for overheating, and allowing myself valuable multi-tasking. It isn’t even the time while it is heating that is most valuable; it is the only 30 seconds it takes for me to start a bottle. First thing in the morning when my child is unhappy at the empty belly, wet nappy and possibly the fact I just woke him up, this extra time to focus on what matters is priceless.
Although I didn’t time it, I found the Tommee Tippee bottle warmer works just as well for pouches. This can also work for jars of frozen food you may have prepared in bulk.
I have one complaint with the Tommee Tippee bottler warmer, the power button is too small. This is a minor gripe but for a button that you need to press regularly, it seems odd they didn’t make it similarly sized to the other buttons. It is just harder to press than it should be, especially when holding a child in one arm.
The device itself is light and quite small. This makes it easy to transport if travelling. If you need a truly portable bottle warmer for travel, my advice is to buy a thermos. It will be useful at other times and it’s easy to use warm water to heat a bottle.