Bottle warmer advice needed!

[akc]

Hello - I know that for most people a bottle warmer is a waste, but my husband and my bedroom as well as our new baby's nursery are on the third floor of our home (and the kitchen is on the first). I am on a medication that prevents me from breastfeeding, so we know we'll be using formula from birth. For those midnight feedings, we are trying to devise a system for making the bottles ahead of time & then warming (all on the third floor). Despite the great exercise the stairs would be two-three times a night, we are trying to avoid that.

Does anyone have experience with the available bottle warmers? I've found:
* Avent Express Bottle and Baby Food Warmer (not sure this can use any size bottle?)
* Night and Day Bottle Warmer from first years (looks good because you can actually premake the bottles and put them in a little cooler on the back and then just pop them in the warmer - but does a premade bottle of formula need to be cooled?)
* Quick Serve Bottle Warmer from first years (uses steam to heat bottles?)

I'm assuming that all can overheat the bottles, but that's the case if you are heating in the kitchen as well.

Please pass on any and all advice - I'm a first-time Mom! Thanks!
akc

[HOBSON725]

we use the quick serve bottle warmer and like it alot. you do have to do some experimenting w/the amt. of water needed for heating. it fits avent bottles(we use them). it also has an auto shut-off! you do need to keep premade bottles chilled. have any other questions, email me! ~ech

*ps...i had my baby dec19 and have learned lots! you will figure it out!!! congratulations!

[egoldber]

You may want to start out by offering your baby cold bottles (you can always get a bottle warmer later if you need it). I have never warmed bottles for my baby. She takes them cold straight out of the refrigerator (both formula and expressed milk). Some babies won't accept them that way, but some don't have any preference. Also, some babies may accept a cold bottle initially, but if you start warming them, then will no longer accept them cold. It is INCREDIBLY convenient to have a baby that takes bottles cold. I am the envy of my mommy group. And ignore your mother-in-law or whoever else says that it will "hurt their tummy". That's an old wives tale. They may prefer it warm, but it is NOT a necessity.

Food for thought :-),

[ma2be]

Im with your inlaws on that one! Yuk, cold formula! That's like if your starving your'll eat cold chicken but prefer it warm. Why serve your baby cold formula when you can warm it under the hot faucet for a few seconds. Im sorry, that's laziness and cruel. I could image what you feed your husband!

[suzska]

At first my son would take cold bottles, then he started to refuse them (and it wasn't because we started warming them), so we had to start warming them. He doesn't like cold milk/formula (I, on the other hand, love cold milk!). Anyway....

We used the Night and Day Bottle Warmer and were very happy with it. We used it until he started sleeping through the night. We didn't have it right away, but I wish I had bought it sooner than I did. If you get this one I would recommend getting the second cooler pack (I think you have to call the company--don't know why it doesn't just come with one). I would sometimes forget to take the thing out and put it in the freezer every morning, so it did me no good as a cooler. We used distilled water (see below) in the warmer, so we never had deposits and didn't have to clean it. When making a 4 oz. bottle, we used about half of one of the measuring "caps." Larger bottles seemed to take closer to a full cap. We use Gerber bottles, FWIW. And it was pretty fast at warming the bottles. Just start the warmer, change the baby, and by the time you're done, the bottle should be warm!

We were lazy and used the ready-to-feed formula, so we had to keep it cold. But if you're mixing powder, just don't mix it until you need it--in the bottle, and then the formula will be room temp if you pour the water in ahead of time. We have a water cooler in our kitchen, so now when we use powdered formula we just use the distilled water out of the cooler. We recently bought some floridated bottled water, and have been using that. But we should be on to whole milk in a week or two.

Oh, I should mention that the way we warm a bottle now is to put a measuring cup with about 6 oz. of water into the microwave for about 60-75 seconds, then take it out (put it on a trivet or pot holder), and set the prepared bottle into the measuring cup and leave it for about 3 minutes. That seems to work for my son, and I'm not wasting water running the faucet waiting for it to warm up.

--Sue B.
SAHM to Evan Jeffrey 03-11-01

[egoldber]

Yikes! I had no idea that people find a cold bottle offensive. I guess I figured that "I" drink milk cold, and when she starts whole milk at one year it will be cold then, so why does she need warm formula? And to be honest I was so-disoriented in the whirlwind of my post-delivery (had recently moved cross-country, unexpected C-section, she was 3 weeks early, unpacked boxes everywhere, knew NO ONE in the area, had NO BABY STUFF, had latching problems with breastfeeding, slow weight gain for the baby, etc. and on and on) that it just never OCCURED to me to warm a bottle until my mother-in-law came to stay and was aghast that I wasn't warming them. I figured at that point she had been taking cold bottles for 2 weeks, so why start warming now? And to be honest she was breastfed at least half the time, also had formula prepared in the bottle (so it was made with warm water), and we were also using the small bottles of ready to feed from the hospital (room temp). I did call the pediatrician and ask after my mother-in-law's reaction, and he laughed, said it was fine and lucky me!

These days I make up a quart of formula at a time, store in the fridge in a Rubbermaid container and use it out of the fridge as I need it. It is also very handy when out and about and it is time for a feeding. I have one of the bottle coolers (from the hospital) and you don't have to worry about finding a place to warm it. Sometimes there is no warm water available and then what do you do if you have a crying, hungry baby who won't take a cold bottle? Wait while they scream while it warms? Go home and not get your errands done and have to go out again?

In my opinion, it isn't cruel. (Lazy maybe I'll agree with.) :-)

Certainly not trying to offend anyone, only trying to help,

[Elaine]

We bought the Night&Day warmer and while it sounded good, we found it to be a big waste. First of all, according to the manufacturer instructions, you are supposed to make the bottles and chill them in the fridge BEFORE putting them into the cooler. Well, we did this and the warmer never warmed the bottle properly. There isn't a timer to set for various bottle amounts, so you had to "guess" when the bottle might be warm -- since it didn't always heat the bottle enough on the first try, sometimes I had to run the thing two or three times, which in the middle of the night with a crying hungry baby just doesn't work! And since there's no timer and you're guessing, if you aren't using a full 8 oz bottle -- which no one with a newborn does! -- you run the risk that it might OVER-heat the bottle and be too hot for your baby!

All that said, we returned the warmer and got our 40 bucks back. Our next try was just using warm water from the bathroom sink and mixing the powder, but what we have settled on is just putting the water in the bottles before we go to bed, and when we get up to feed her at night we just mix the powder into the room temp water. My daughter has never, ever complained or had a problem with it, which makes me think that in most cases the bottle warmer is completely unnecessary and just a money-maker for the manufacturers. My advice is to forgo buying a bottle warmer until you try the room temp method.

As for the comments by "ma2be" -- nothing but petty, self-righteous, I-am-a-better-mother-than-you crap. Fortunately there aren't too many rude people like that on this forum, but I guess there's one in every crowd.

[ma2be]

Elaine, please! I am not being petty, nor am I even a mother yet to start preaching "im a better mother than you". Nor was I being rude. I just never heard of anyone giving a infant cold formula before. I just see it as being lazy. It takes five seconds to warm it under some water or even better yet, use room temp water or room temp formula. This forum is for opinions and I was just voicing mine. Your the snotty one here if you ask me!

[akc]

Hi - Thank you to all of you for your advice. So, here's my follow-up question. When people are saying "room temperature," does that mean actually room temperature (I'd consider that lukewarm at best)? Or, could I fill the bottle with the warm water from the bathroom sink and then it would be warm (the sink water actually can get hot - too hot for me to wash my face, so I'm wondering if I could just fill the formula with a warm water)? I guess the only downside to that is that the bottle is not prepared and ready to go with the baby starts to cry? More thoughts?

Thank you again - it's tough for me b/c I can't breastfeed (and really would have liked to but it's not worth the risk of being off my medication) but I don't like to get the "tsk, tsk" look when I talk to health care folks about not breastfeeding.

Alexa

[suzska]

Personally I wouldn't use hot (or waem) water from the tap--the whole "don't use hot water because there might be lead in the pipes" thing. If you're going to mix it when you use it, I would just fill the bottles with water ahead of time and let them sit. Get one of those formula travel containers that has three sections so you can measure out the powder ahead of time. Then you just dump it into the water when you're ready and shake. That takes all of maybe 30 seconds. Baby can surely wait that long.

--Sue B.
SAHM to Evan Jeffrey 03-11-01