Baby feeding first look reviews Yoomi self-warming baby bottle

The Yoomi is a self-heating baby bottle which works at the touch of a button. We gave it to a mum to try out, and here are her first impressions.

Yoomi uses the same gel found in hand warmers to heat breast milk, pre-mixed or ready-made formula milk to between 32 and 34 degrees centigrade (the temperature of breast milk). Once the Yoomi self-heating bottle is charged, just press the activation button, wait 60 seconds, and turn the bottle upside down. 

The feed flows from the bottle through channels on the outside of the charged warmer and, by the time it reaches the teat, it’s been heated. As your baby feeds, more milk or formula flows through the channels and is warmed.

The package we tried from Yoomi costs £22 and included a bottle, warmer and teats. The Yoomi bottle warmer must be used with an official Yoomi bottle and teats. We gave the Yoomi to a mum to try out to find out whether it’s worth this £22 price tag.

How do you prepare the Yoomi?

As with all bottles, you’ll need to sterilise the Yoomi before you give it to your baby. But in the Yoomi’s case, this also charges the bottle warmer. You just pop the warmer in a continuously-boiling pan of water for 25 minutes, or put it in a steam steriliser with four times the amount of water you usually use for 25 minutes.

Once you’ve charged the Yoomi, you need to leave it for 75 minutes before you activate the warmer and give it to your baby, to ensure that it’s cooled down sufficiently.

When you want to heat some milk or pre-mixed formula for your baby, just slot the teat and collar warmer on to the Yoomi baby bottle, click a button, wait 60 seconds, turn it upside down and it’s ready to go.

A mum’s verdict on the Yoomi

The mum who tried the Yoomi out for us was disappointed that the warmer could not be heated in the microwave. She said: ‘I use the microwave to sterilise feeding equipment and I found recharging the warmer the most frustrating part of using the Yoomi. Using a pan of boiling water was far from ideal. But if you had a steam steriliser, this part of the process would be a lot easier.’

We asked her if she’d consider buying the Yoomi and she told us that, although she bottle-feeds regularly, she didn’t really think that the Yoomi was easy enough to charge for her to consider buying it.

She felt that you would need to own a steam steriliser if you were to consider buying the Yoomi, because charging the device in a pan of boiling water was too fiddly and time-consuming. She also thought you’d need to buy several heating collars if you wanted to use it for all your feeds.

The mum who tried it said: ‘We found it most useful when we were planning short trips to the shops or park. Packing a bottle that can be heated quickly is useful if you’re not near a kitchen or a sympathetic cafe owner who will give you warm water to heat a standard bottle.'

She also commented that the Yoomi seemed quite heavy compared with her usual bottle.

Buying the Yoomi

The bottle is available exclusively from John Lewis and costs £22 for a bottle and warmer. Additional bottles will cost £7.50, and teats are £4.50 for a pack of two. 

At the moment you can only buy a small bottle for use with the Yoomi; this means it's only suitable for children up to the age of four months. The manufacturers are currently working on a bottle for older babies. 

We asked the mum who tried out the Yoomi for us if she would buy it at this price. She told us: ‘The official Yoomi bottles are more expensive than standard bottles and, if you wanted to use the Yoomi for all your feeds, you need to buy several warmers – so the costs would really stack up.’

The Yoomi can be recharged up to 100 times before it needs to be replaced. We think this means it’s more suitable for occasional use than at every feed.

Pros: Once charged it heats milk to an appropriate temperature in less than a minute; it’s very portable

Cons: The collar can’t be charged in a microwave, it’s heavier and more expensive than a standard bottle, can only be used 100 times before the heat collar needs to be replaced.