When your baby wakes up hungry, trying to get a breast milk bottle warmed up quickly can be stressful! Today’s question is from a reader who wants to know if there is an easy, quick way to warm a bottle at night.
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Fastest Ways to Warm Breast Milk for Night Feedings
My baby is four months old, and has started sleeping longer stretches at night. I just dropped my middle of the night pumping session.
Is there an easier way to store the milk from my last pumping session of the day (around 10pm) until my baby’s first feeding at night (around 2am, sometimes a little later)? I’ve been using a cooler and warming the milk under the sink, but it seems to take a long time. Can breast milk be heated in a bottle warmer?
Yes, there is an easier way! Generally, I wouldn’t recommend warming milk by running it under water in the sink (unless you have no other option) because, as you said, it takes forever.
Here are a few other options that might work better.
1. Leave your freshly pumped milk out at room temperature after you pump it
Whether this is a good option for you depends on how long your baby usually sleeps.
The CDC says that breast milk can be kept at room temperature for up to four hours. (Some sources say up to 6-8 hours.)
So what you can do is after you pump, bring the milk to your bedroom with you. When baby wakes up hungry, it will be room temperature and likely warm enough for your baby to take.
As an example, I took a bottle up to my room after my 10pm pumping session, and my baby usually woke up around 2am to eat it. On the rare occasions that he’d sleep through the night or not wake up until much later, I would dump the milk.
That’s one disadvantage of this method – you may have to dump your milk (or use it for a milk bath) if your baby wakes up later than normal for a feeding.
2. Use a bottle warmer to warm the milk, with everything ready to go
If using freshly pumped milk isn’t an option (for example, if you’re using a frozen stash or are supplementing with formula), another option is prepping the bottle ahead of time and keeping it and it and everything you need in your room.
Basically, you’d get a mini-fridge or cooler for your bedroom along with a bottle warmer for night feedings that’s all set up and ready to go.
A mini-fridge like the one below is small, affordable, and all that you’d need:
Then when baby wakes up, you just have to take the bottle out, put it in the warmer, press start and bounce your baby for a minute while it warms.
Hybrid room temperature and cooler method
Another option to consider – one reader mentioned that she brought a small cooler to bed with her with two bottles of milk. One bottle was fresh and the other refrigerated.
She gave the baby the first bottle of fresh milk for the first feed, and at that time took the other bottle out of the cooler, allowing it to warm up to room temperature before the baby’s second feeding of the night.
3. Use hot water to warm the milk
If you don’t have a bottle warmer, you can microwave a bowl of hot water for 60-90 seconds and put the bottle in that for a minute or so to warm.
This is less easy to do in the middle of the night with a baby to juggle, but it’s much faster than running a bottle under warm water in the sink.
Note that you should never heat baby bottles in the microwave due to “hot spots” that could burn your baby’s mouth.
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4. See if your baby will take cold bottles (and skip warming altogether)
The only reason that you need to warm breast milk after the very early days is because many babies prefer it, and won’t take cold bottles.
So if your baby will take cold milk, you might just want to switch to cold bottles so that you can feed your milk directly from the fridge. This will make your life a lot easier (and not just at night).
How to try introducing cold bottles
It’s possible you’ve already tried this, but if not, give it a shot.
I would start by offering a cold bottle during the day (the middle of the night is not the time for experiments) and seeing if your baby will take it.
If your baby rejects it, you can try warming it a bit (maybe not as much as you normally would), and see if that is acceptable. If it is, you can see if gradually bringing the temperature down will work, until it’s not necessary to heat it at all.
This won’t work for every baby – some will refuse cold milk, no matter what you do – and you may have to try this a few times under different circumstances. Try it:
- with you offering it,
- with someone else offering it,
- when your baby is really hungry,
- when he’s not as hungry, etc.
Do you have any tips for quickly warming up bottles that I missed? Share them in the comments!
References
- Bonyata, Kelly, IBCLC. “Human Milk Storage: Quick Reference Card.” https://kellymom.com/store/freehandouts/milkstorage01.pdf
Comments & Chitchat
I have a station set up upstairs in my bedroom. Since my LO takes a few feedings at night, I have multiple bottles ready to be filled next to an electric bottle warmer (takes 4 mins to warm about 3 oz of cold breastmilk) and a countertop fridge in my connecting bathroom to store pumped milk. I also have a bin for used bottles so I can take everything downstairs in the morning for cleaning/sterilizing.
I sleep with the baby bottle of water (previously boiled and cooled)
I keep portiond formula next to my bed ready to go
My body temperature gets the water to the perfect temperature, as soon as baby wakes I add the formula (bottle ready in less than 5 seconds!)
Once he is down to sleep I start warming the next bottle…..
I supplement with formula and I boil water once my daughter is down for the night and let it cool to my desired temperature then I put it in a thermos. When she wakes up for her feed I simply pour the water into her bottle and her formula is ready in a less than a minute and at the perfect temperature. For those using breast milk you can pour the water in the thermos immediately after it has boiled and use that and a mug to warm or unfreeze your bottle. The thermos also works for when out and about with baby if there is no designated breastfeeding area where I am I can make her a bottle of formula quickly and it’s warm. Mind you my daughter does and has drank cold (ish) formula however during the night I find that the warm milk concept helps put her off to sleep better. I use my tea thermos that I got at David’s Tea and it can keep water very hot for at least 6 hours.
We have a Keurig coffee maker and use the smallest cup size and fill that with hot water from the Keurig and warm a bottle up that way. It takes a few minutes bur works!
I love this idea!!
A small crock pot will keep water warm all night for heating bottles.
Great idea – thank you!
I had a nightstand bottle warmer that had a cooler that held two bottles cool with an ice pack. I’d pack both bottles at night, and pre-measure the water for the warmer.
At first I thought it was the laziest thing ever, but I quickly found out it was nice not to go all the way to the kitchen with a crying child at night.
The First Years night cravings bottle warmer is about $20 at most retailers.
So nice not to go all the way to the kitchen! 🙂
I leave my fresh breast milk in a freezer bag in the fridge because you can lay it down in a container of warm water, it increases surface area and the plastic bag is thinner than the wall of the bottle so it heats much faster than a bottle. Also, a thermos of hot water beside the bed will stay hot all night, just throw the bag in there for 30 seconds. This also works for formula feeding. I had a thermos of Pre-boiled hot water and kept a concentrated formula mix in the bottle in the fridge. (Half the water of a normal mixture) I’d just top it up with hot water and go.
That’s awesome Becca – thank you!
I have a question: is it okay to take out a bottle from the fridge and leave it beside for a few hours to get to room temp, or must you use the freshly pumped 10 PM milk?
Thanks 🙂
Great question! I have never been able to find a clear answer to this. My thinking is that if you put the refrigerated bottle in the fridge immediately and it’s from the same day, it’s likely fine – but that’s not evidence-based, just my guess. Sorry I don’t have a better answer!
My husband had a genius idea to make a pot of water through the coffee pot and leave the burner on. In the middle of the night just place water in a mug and put the bottle in it. Then I go and change baby’s diaper while I’m waiting and by the time I’m done with that the milk is ready.
Great idea!!! I love it!
I use my Keurig… takes a little bit of time for the machine to warm up (or just leave it on if you’re not worried about the Hydro) but then I put the bottle in a mug filled halfway with hot water and go and change the baby and by the time i’m done that its usually perfectly body temperature (I find two minutes is the time frame). At my Mom’s we do the 90 seconds of water in the microwave and I find it takes longer for the bottle to heat up (plus there’s noisy microwave sounds in the middle of the night to consider). So if you have a Keurig I recommend trying it just to see if it works for you.
Great idea Jen!!!!
Yes! This is exactly what I do! I also have a water cooler/heater at one of our houses (my husband and I travel from the ocean to the foothills) and when we’re there, I use hot water from that. I’m all about not getting baby appliances that will have a limited lifespan in my house. Ie rather than a babyfood Najee, we got a vita mix- it makes awesome cocktails too 🙂
We did the same as Amanda, leaving milk out from the last pump of the night for the inevitable wakeup. Once baby started sleeping longer stretches, I’d put my 9-10 pm pump in the fridge and then take a bottle out when I woke up (because bathroom, insomniac cat, etc.) in the middle of the night. I do agree that having the bottle warmer prepped and ready to go, and a bottle already prepared with a nipple on it instead of a cap, saves time and zzzs!