28 out of 28 people found this review helpful.
A useless purchase
Date of Review: Jun 2, 2002
The Bottom Line: This turned out to be one of those useless things that first-time parents buy, because they think it will make their lives easier. Avoid or at least delay purchase.
I work full-time, and my husband feeds our daughter expressed breast milk while I?m at work. I thought I?d do him a favor by getting a bottle-warmer. If I'd have done it all over, I'd have done myself a favor and skipped this purchase.
What is it?
The Day and Night warmer is a bottle warmer with a built -in cooler. The cooler will hold two bottles for up to eight hours, and requires that you use an ice-pack, which comes with the set. The warmer requires an electrical outlet and warms one bottle at a time, using steam. The First Years claims it will warm a bottle within five minutes. The set includes two little blue cups that hold the tiny amount of water needed to create the steam. The warmer and cooler will fit most bottles, including Avent. It will not work with glass bottles. The warmer comes with an automatic shut-off, so it (hopefully) won't cause a fire at 3 am, when you forget you started to warm a bottle.
How well did it work?
Well, not very. I put the warmer next to my husband's side of the bed, filled the two cups with water, and I plugged it in. When I left for work in the morning, I pulled out two bottles and an ice pack, so he?d have everything he needed for the day right there, and he could get some more sleep instead of warming a bottle.
We tried this for two days and just gave up on the warmer altogether.
What happened?
The cooler kept the milk chilled just fine, but the warmer worked a little too well. My husband said the bottles were consistently too hot by the wrist test, so he?d have to let them cool before he could use them. We were using Avent bottles, so maybe they work better with another type. We?re not about to switch bottles just to get the warmer to work, however.
what I liked
Built in cooler
Auto shut-off
Fits Avent bottles
Warms very quickly
what I didn't like
overheats
requires electrical outlet (I would like to see a battery operated one)
no temperature or volume adjuster - 4 oz of milk gets the same treatment as 8, and there's only one temperature -hot-
The bottom line
Because we breast feed, we have no need for immediately warming a bottle in the middle of the night, and if we did, we?d probably use a thermos of warm water to mix the powder.
During the day, it is more convenient for my husband to grab a bottle when he gets up, plop it in a cup of warm tap water, and wait for our daughter to wake up. It?s also much cheaper. Bottles don?t have to be warmer than room temperature, anyway.
This item has turned out to be one of those totally useless gizmos that new parents get to try and make their lives easier. I wouldn?t suggest throwing your money away on it if you breast feed. If you bottle-feed, or have some other need to warm bottles at 3 am, you might want to delay your purchase, or see if you can find a bottle-warmer that doesn't overheat as much as this one.
BabyAge
