The yoomi warming pod and feeding system

For those of you who regularly read the blog, you’ll know that I’m a now an exclusive breastfeeding mum. Breastfeeding is something that I’m so pleased that we’ve got down to a fine art, after a rather rocky start (with some combi-feeding) – and something that I’m immensely proud of!

But, even though I adore feeding our little man, there is always a time where it’s useful (in my eyes) to be able to feed some milk (expressed, in our case) from a bottle. Great example being when I was full of a cold and had an horrendous sickness bug as well – being able to give Monkey some previously expressed milk was very handy, as my milk supply always seems to dwindle a bit when I’m not well. Monkey isn’t a big fan of bottles, if I’m honest (he’s getting picky in his old age) but he settled down to drinking from this one quite well (after a little fuss!)

Previously, I’ve blogged about the yoomi feeding system here . This is a system that is quite different to any other on the market, in that there is a rechargeable warmer that slots into the top of the bottle, under the teat. This is a great idea as it can gently warm feeds up to the natural temperature of breast milk in under 60 seconds. Obviously, you should always make your feeds up correctly, but this system comes into its own (in my opinion) when you’re using expressed breast milk or the pre-mixed milk that you can get in cartons, if you choose to formula feed.

yoomi bottles have a nice, wide-necked anti-colic teat that are very breast-like in appearance, which is why I think Monkey has objected far less to these bottles than he has to others! The teats has six anti-colic vents, which is fantastic – and I only wish that I’d come across these earlier when we were combi-feeding him in the early months as he suffered really quite badly with colic. There’s nothing quite like those awful, heart-wrenching screams that a little newbie makes when they’re suffering from colic and it’s very difficult when there’s not that much that you can do to make it better.

Giving a feed from a yoomi bottle is a real breeze. You just firmly press the orange button of the yoomi warmer through the teat and once the warmer is active and heating up, you turn the bottle upside down so that the milk runs over the warmer and into the teat. After 30 seconds it’s ready to be used and the milk will be warmed to a temperature akin to breastmilk, which is perfect for us. The warmer keeps warm for an hour, which is very handy if your baby takes feeds slowly or just wants a bit at a time!

The yoomi warmer is the thing that really makes this system something quite different and rather useful. You can pre-charge warmers up and then have them at the ready, which is really helpful for warming milk in the middle of the night, or for when you’re out and about. It’s also a very handy little case for your pods!

When I did my last review, there were two ways that you could recharge the pod. You could either put it in an electric steam steriliser for 25 continuous minutes (with four times the amount of water that the steriliser normally needs) or put it on it’s side in a pan of continuously boiling water for 25 mins. It’s has the same stuff in it that hand gel warmers have, so it needs to be recharged between uses. Once it’s charged up, you have to leave it for 75 minutes to rest and cool down. If you use it before that time is up, you can permanently damage it.

Even though I really didn’t find doing all that much of a faff, I did think that the time it took to recharge the pods was something that could be off-putting to some people. What I didn’t know is that the clever, clever folks at yoomi were working hard to come up with a solution! The yoomi charging pod!

This little pod takes away all the time and potential hassle of charging up the pods and really does make the whole system a breeze to use. You can charge up a pod in 2 minutes, or less, depending on the wattage of your microwave. Pods need to cool down after they are charged (this takes about 75 mins at room temperature, or 20 mins in cool water) but you could easily just leave them when you’re doing other things around the house. Once they’re charged, they stay charged – so you can pop one beside the bed for the night feed, pop one into your changing bag for when you go out or just have them at the ready around the house!

The yoomi pod , in my eyes, has turned a very clever system into an immensely clever and sensible feeding system. It takes away the time element that recharging the pods took and I really love how easy it is to use. Although we don’t use bottles that often, the yoomi makes it so much simpler for my husband (or myself) to give Monkey a feed at a temperature that he’s used to.

Daisytheclothbummum was not paid for this review and gave my time freely to do so. A yoomi feeding system was sent to me for review but all thoughts and opinions stated here are my own.

Clever Kit! The Yoomi Bottle and Warmer Review

As I’m now working part time, which is involving a lot of weekday mornings, we have been looking around for solutions for feeding Monkey in the night, so that I can get a little bit more sleep in preparation for the working day.

As he’s a mainly breastfed baby (we have some prescription, lactose-free formula but that tends to be used in emergencies and in cooking), having Monkey feeding the countless times throughout the night that he sometimes still does is not really practical, so we started to look at bottles.

The only problem is that they take just so long to heat up, if you have to muck around with the kettle. By that stage, what might have been a bit of a whimper or a half cry, where he would usually pull himself across and land back on a boob, or be picked up from his cot and settled down to a feed, has often escalated into a full-on war cry of high pitched proportions that really isn’t good for creating a calm, sleepy environment for anyone and makes settling him back down a much more tricky operation.

So, when I came across the yoomi bottle, I was intrigued. http://www.yoomi.com I really wanted to have a play with one and the nice folk who make them sent me one over so I could do just that! The bottle is a rechargeable, self warming and BPA free bottle – it has a special warmer that slots in under the teat and heats the milk up within 60 seconds.

To use the heating element, you have to either put it in an electric steam steriliser for 25 continuous minutes (with four times the amount of water that the steriliser normally needs) or put it on it’s side in a pan of continuously boiling water for 25 mins. It’s got the same stuff in it that hand gel warmers have, so it needs to be recharged between uses. Once it’s charged up, you have to leave it for 75 minutes to rest and cool down, but it remains charged until you need to use it. If you use it before it is fully rested, you can permanently damage it. Each warmer is good for 100 feeds.

Ok – so I have to be honest – when I first read all that, it seemed like a little bit of a faff but I wanted to keep an open mind and went for it. We boiled up the water and charged up the heater. Whilst it’s a little time-consuming, it’s not really a hassle if you’re doing other things in the kitchen. I charged mine up one lunchtime when I was batch-cooking and feeding Monkey. Didn’t really take any extra time out of my day and I left it cooling whilst we went off to play and then have a little nap!

We got the bottle ready for a feed in the afternoon, thinking that this would be a good introduction to it as it’s quite a different shape from the ones that he’s been used recently (Dr Brown ones – the teat isn’t as wide). The bottle itself is nice and wide, with a breast-type anti-colic teat (which I really like as Monkey had dreadful colic when he was little). Without the warmer, it’s a very light bottle but I have to be honest and say that the warmer does add a significant amount of weight to it.

However, this weight is actually completely well worth it when you get to use the bottle and warmer together. I put breast milk from the fridge in the bottle and then went to use it. I pressed the orange button on the bottle warmer and followed the instructions carefully. The warmer rattles when it’s not ready to use and stops rattling when its ready and you give it a little shake. This takes about 30 seconds. You hold the bottle so that the teat is full of milk and you’re ready to go!

It worked remarkably well and I was very impressed. Monkey is really fussy about new bottles and cups but didn’t seem at all phased by this new one and the milk was at the right temperature for him. What a fab invention!

The only downside to the yoomi bottle is that once you’ve used the warmer once, then it has to be recharged (which involves a bit of time again). However, the bottle can be used without the warmer and you can buy warmers individually which would make the system work well as you could then always have a charged one at the ready.

As a bottle that we can use at night to give him a quickly warmed feed, it’s brilliant and does the job really well! The prices of a yoomi do look a little steep when you first see them, but they’re actually not bad once you take into account what you get with the feeding systems that they have on offer. For the ease and portability that you get with them, I think they’re a good item to have at home.

As I don’t really use bottles much, the yoomi does provide me with a useful bit of kit that will hopefully help Mr Clothbum to quickly give Monkey a calm and correctly-heated feed at night and allow me to get a little bit more sleep before I have to do the next feed. We will probably invest in a second heater and bottle just in case we need two but it will fill in that gap nicely before Monkey joins us in bed for a bit of co-sleeping and open-bar snacking in the early hours of the morning!

Daisytheclothbummum was not paid for this review and gave my time freely to do so. A yoomi bottle http://www.yoomi.com was sent to me for review but all thoughts and opinions stated here are my own.