Yoomi, the self-warming bottle

What do you do when you are out with a hungry baby and you have a bottle of cold breast milk but no way to warm it?  Its quite the predicament, and we have been there.  BUT, no more thanks to Yoomi, the self-warming bottle.

Yes, this bottle really does warm the milk by itself.  What a novel concept.  We had been a couple places with Phoebe where we were unable to get hot/warm water to warm up a bottle of breast milk, so this bottle was intriguing to me.  My friend Alyssa mentioned it to me suggesting that some fun bottles might help "ease the transition" to exclusive bottle feeding after I had decided to stop nursing.  Well I must admit I enjoyed a little splurge of retail therapy :)

The company claims that it warms the feed to the temperature of fresh breast milk in 60 seconds, and I was eager to try out this claim.  The warmer device sits in the large nipple (or teat as the British company calls it).  According to the directions, you hit the button on the warmer (through the nipple/teat) and wait 30 seconds, then you turn the bottle upside down for 30 seconds and ta-da!  Your feed is warm.  Well, I must admit that it does take longer than 60 seconds to warm the feed, but it certainly does warm cold milk taken out of an iced cooler.

Turning the bottle upside down allows the feed to run into the nipple (teat) and around the warmer.  Now, I suppose if your baby was a very slow eater that it could warm the milk in the 30 seconds that it sits in the nipple when you turn the bottle over and then it would continue to warm the feed from the bottom of the bottle as it flowed into the nipple and around the warmer.  However, we did not find this to be true.  What I do is turn the bottle upside down for a minute and then turn the bottle right-side up.  I continue this flipping for several minutes.  As the feed runs over the warmer it does warm the whole bottle.  Its pretty sweet.  I would say it has allowed me to be more mobile and not worry about how to warm a bottle.  For awhile we were taken a thermos of hot water with us to warm the bottle, but this has simplified our lives a bit.  (I also would worry about the hot water spilling out of the thermos and burning someone or getting things wet.)

I'm not 100% sure how the warmer works.  You have to "charge" the warmer before each use.  You charge it by placing it in a pot of boiling water for 25 minutes and then letting it sit/cool for 75 minutes.  Once it is charged it will stay charged until you use it.  So I will typically re-charge it after every use and then its ready to go whenever I might need it.

You can read more about it here.

The Yoomi bottle is certainly not a necessity; I would definitely consider it a splurge item.  But I will say that we have enjoyed it and that a little retail therapy can go a long way :)  And because someone gave us A TON of used bottles from their children this is the only new bottle we've bought or had given to use, so I don't feel as bad.

Ok, this is a much later thought that I am adding after I finished this post, but someone was just telling me that they feed their baby cold breast milk straight from the cooler.  I feel a bit stupid, but I didn't know you could do this...  I don't know if Phoebe would take it cold or not. I guess it depends on the baby, but she'll get warm milk now that's for sure.