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Yoomi bottles are revolutionary. When we received the package, I’ll be honest – I was intimidated by the complexity of the pieces involved, and everything that we had to do to set it up before we could actually start using it. Keep in mind, we’re pretty simple people – we like to be able to just pour expressed breastmilk into a bottle and away we go. So, when I opened the package I wasn’t overly keen to start using them.
Then, I decided to just do it. The instructions were fairly straight forward, but in case you are lost with them, I’ll make sure to add a small tutorial after this review, and hopefully get a YouTube video up on it as well.
The feeding system comes complete with everything you need to get going – a bottle, a charging pod (a plastic thing to heat the warmer up in the microwave), and the warmer (kinda looks like a bee hive). First of all, I looked at the charging pod, and my first thought was, “that can’t go in the microwave, there’s metal in it”. But I just followed the instructions, put the warmer mechanism thingie into the charging pod, put that into the microwave and prepared for the worst, but sure enough, everything went smooth! You basically have to heat it up for 60 seconds, take it out of the microwave and shake it, and if it rattles, shake it for 30 seconds, then put it in the microwave for another 30 seconds, and voila, its done! Then you leave it for 75 minutes to cool down, and you can use it anytime after that. So, we took our son swimming, and when we got home, went to feed him.
The warmer has to be recharged after every use, but its pretty simple – basically you stick the warmer in the pod, microwave it, take it out and shake it and microwave it again. Then you leave it to cool down. Once its been charged, you can leave it until you’re ready to use it, push the orange button on it, and its ready to go within 60 seconds. I found its best to recharge it before bed (it literally takes 2 minutes, if that), and then its ready to go the next day. When my husband pressed the button on the warmer and it was ready to go, he was in disbelief. He thought there’s no way it could warm up cold breastmilk (the breastmilk was in the fridge overnight) within 60 seconds. We poured the cold/refrigerated breastmilk into the bottle, and took the bottle and baby upstairs for his feed.
I tested the milk on my wrist before we gave it to our 6 month old son, and I was amazed. My thought on it was that the idea of this hassle-free, one touch (practically instant) breastmilk/formula warmer was too good to be true. But sure enough, it was the temperature of fresh breastmilk – all in 60 seconds. My husband didn’t believe me so I squirted a couple drops on his wrist. He was shocked. His first thought was “how the heck have we been using a bottle warmer for so long”, not knowing about the Yoomi bottles. Since my husband is usually the one who bottle feeds our son (when I’m at work, otherwise I would just breast feed him), he is the one who usually struggles with getting the perfect temperature for the milk. We have a Dr Brown’s bottle warmer, but in our experience, it usually over heats the milk, so my husband just recently started warming up breastmilk the old-school way – by placing the bottle in hot water and waiting. And I’m sure anyone who’s done this, knows that trying to warm up cold breastmilk (or formula) while listening to a hungry, screaming baby isn’t much fun. Especially when you end up overheating the milk and you have to wait for it to cool down. So, the fact that it actually warms cold breastmilk in 60 seconds, is truly amazing. It also lasts for about an hour, in case you press the button and your baby decides he/she doesn’t want to eat right away. Yoomi Bottle 1, Regular Bottle 0.
The next thing we noticed, is that our son had to have a good latch on the bottle because the warmer is in the silicone nipple area of the bottle, so he can’t just suck on the teat part of it. (See photo below). This is one of the most important things for myself (as the person breastfeeding), because you don’t want to deal with nipple confusion – it hurts. So, this bottle, to my surprise was actually just as good in preventing nipple confusion as the bottles we used before, the Munchkin Latch. Ok, I’ll give both bottles a point here: Yoomi Bottle 2, Regular Bottle 1.
Another issue we have with our regular bottles (the Munchkin Latch), was that the nipple/teat on the Latch bottles sometimes collapse inwards. We noticed that this doesn’t happen with the Yoomi bottles. My husband usually has to open the lid of the bottle to release some air in order to invert the nipple or pop it back out. So its nice that he doesn’t have to take the bottle away from the baby to do that with the Yoomi bottles. Yoomi clearly stands out in this category: Yoomi Bottle 3, Regular Bottle 1.
The system itself is also very easy to clean – warm, soapy water does the trick for the bottles as well as the warmer. The nipple actually detaches from the rim of the lid as well so you can ensure you get it really clean. Its just as easy to put it all back together again as well.
If anyone is wondering, the warmer itself is not hot to the touch (at least not through the bottle), so its perfectly safe for your baby to handle or hold the bottle themselves. The only thing you may want to keep in mind, is that the bottle is top heavy because of the warmer – which may be a little inconvenient for younger or smaller babies who are just learning or figuring out how to hold their own bottle. Or, if you get these bottles from the get-go, getting your baby to learn how to hold their own bottle may take a little longer as they will need more strength to hold it. Our son just turned 6 months old, and he had no difficulties at all holding the bottle (see pics), but I just wanted to point that out.
(In the image above, you can see the milk passing through the warmer before it gets to your baby's mouth).
Overall, in all honesty, I would give this bottle a 5 star rating. It does what it sets out to do and more. Ultimately, it is a self-warming bottle (which it does perfectly), but it really hits on all the things that you would want out of a bottle – anti-colic vents to prevent bubbles thus causing gas, creates a proper latch removing possible nipple confusion, and the nipple doesn’t collapse into the bottle like some other bottles do. We don’t typically take milk with us when we go out, but we have started to since we received this system. The bottom line is, it is so easy to use, even men can operate and feed the baby. I like to refer to it as “husband-approved”. It is completely worth its money – if you’re going to spend money on a bottle warming device, save your money and just get this instead – it seriously saves you the hassle and the headache. And if you are looking to purchase one, you can use the discount code BEINGAMUMMY at the checkout at Yoomi U.S. (And Canada), or www.yoomi.com, which entitles you to 15% off since you took the time to read this review!
*Disclaimer: I was offered this product at little or no cost, in exchange for a review. All reviews are based 100% on our personal experiences and I am in no way obligated to give a positive review.
If you have experience with this bottle, or others, please feel free to leave comments below.