The Best Bottle Warmers, Vetted by Parents Who’ve Used Them

Across the board, most parents recommended the Philips Avent Fast bottle warmer. Not only is it relatively affordable, at roughly six inches tall and wide, it takes up very little space and it gets the job done efficiently. An indicator light shows you when the bottle is warmed, rather than emitting a beep, so if your baby’s half asleep, it won’t wake her before you’re ready to feed. Plus, the milk continuously circulates, preventing hot spots. “It's just a super reliable and easy to use bottle warmer,” Michela H. told us. “It's also lightweight, so it’s easy to travel with. The only con would be that if you have a big bottle (like over 6 oz) it can take a while to warm up.”

Fast Facts:

• Auto Shut-Off? Yes—warms milk for one hour, then turns off
• Bottle Warming Time: 3-3.5 minutes (for 5 ounces)

Leave it to the company that allows you to enjoy your coffee at the exact degree you like it to develop a similar system for bottles. Billed as “the world’s first self-warming baby bottle,” our tester loved the streamlined aesthetics and ease of popping the Ember bottle on its warming puck, letting it gently warm the milk to body temperature—and even being able to do so from bed. (It connects to the Ember Baby app, so you can start heating the bottle that way, and use it to track feedings.) There are also nipple adapters that make the bottle compatible with Dr. Brown’s Options+ Wide-Neck nipples and Philips Avent nipples.

Ember’s slick technology comes at a cost, though, which may be hard to justify, unless your baby truly prefers a warm bottle and you’d like a truly space-saving, tech-enabled option.

Fast Facts:

• Auto Shut-Off? Yes—power turns off if liquid gets too hot, per the brand
• Bottle Warming Time: 5-ish minutes

Until your sweet baby has arrived, it’s impossible to know which bottle he might like. That’s what makes this portable warmer so appealing: Not only is it compact and wireless, so you can take it on the go, but the set comes with adapters to make it fit just about any bottle on the market, from narrow-neck designs, like the original Dr. Brown’s, to chunkier styles, such as Comotomo and Tommee Tippee. (These factors make it very giftable in our book.)

In testing, we liked that it used a USB-C charger, and that we could warm up to four bottles on a single charge. It also has an adjustable temperature, ranging from 80 to 110 degrees F, with recommendations of which temp might be best for your needs. We just wish it warmed bottles a bit faster—waiting up to 7 minutes per bottle required us to be masters of distraction to a hangry bebé.

Fast Facts:

• Auto Shut-Off? N/A
• Bottle Warming Time: 3-7 minutes, depending on bottle size

Yes, Baby Brezza makes a stand-alone bottle warmer, but the company’s truly standout appliance is the Formula Pro. It essentially prepares a bottle of formula—between 2 and 10 ounces—for you, so there’s no measuring or mixing on your part. “Baby Brezza Formula Pro is my one-and-done for feeding because it dispenses very warm bottles without any wait time because the water stays heated,” says PureWow commerce editor Olivia Dubyak. “It comes with a temperature-setting button and you can test to see what temperature is best for your little one, too.”

Fast Facts:

• Auto Shut-Off? N/A
• Bottle Warming Time: seconds (water is kept warm)

On its own, the Kiinde Kozii bottle warmer is great—and you can score it for $59 on Amazon—but we’re going to make a case for the full breastfeeding gift set. Like the Philips Avent Fast, the Kozii is essentially a warming chamber that uses water to gently heat a bottle, fitting a wide range of bottle styles. It’s a bit bigger, at roughly 7 inches wide and tall, but marginally so. But for breastfeeding moms, the full kit is particularly appealing, since it comes with 20 breast milk storage bags and adapters that work with most major breast pumps, so you can pump directly into bags. There’s also a vertical storage rack for stowing said bags in your freezer, as well as two bottles you can screw the bags into directly and cleaning tools for said bottles.

We loved the convenience and easy organization the set offered, and that the system could be used to create and thaw your own baby food pouches down the road.

Fast Facts:

• Auto Shut-Off? Yes
• Bottle Warming Time: 5-6 minutes (for 4 oz.)

Compatible with most baby bottles (wide and narrow alike), The First Years Bottle Warmer is as easy to use as it gets: Fill the vial on the side with water, insert bottle and push a button. Reviewers rave about its simplicity the most, as well as its value, since it’s less than half the price of many similar models. (It’s also multipurpose, since it can sterilize bottles and pacifiers.) The downside is its heating time and overall consistency—one Amazon reviewer says it takes up to 10 minutes to heat a four-ounce bottle, and a few said the bottles can get too hot, so you’re then waiting for them to cool down.

Fast Facts:

• Auto Shut-Off? Yes
• Bottle Warming Time: Up to 10 minutes, according to reviewers

Slightly more expensive, Dr. Brown’s Baby Bottle Warmer and Sterilizer is another two-for-one option with strong reviews (66 percent of the 7,000+ on Amazon give it five stars). It’s from a brand we know and trust, and it claims to heat bottles in less than two minutes flat. Many reviews attest to its speed, and rave about how easy it is to use and set up. That said, the biggest complaint is that it’s tricky to measure out the water for its warming reservoir without causing a mess, and it’s equally difficult to empty the machine when you’re not using it.

Fast Facts:

• Auto Shut-Off? No
• Bottle Warming Time: 2ish minutes