Meke Baby Express Pro: 4 weeks in our home

Neither of my girls, not my eldest and not my youngest, was ever much good at breastfeeding in public. Probably I was the main factor there, but they did not like the noise in cafes and restaurants and got very distracted from feeding. So I have always formula fed when we are out and mainly breastfed at home.

Formula out and about meant asking at the cafe for sterilised hot water. You never knew how they had sterilised it, you worried it would come back too hot, and the whole thing was a bit of a drama, like you were being an inconvenience to them. We have all battled through trying to mix up bottles without the right access to water, and being able to pull this out wherever we are has been just amazing for us.

How does it actually work when we're out?

At home I fill it with sterilised water, close it up, turn it on and get it to the right temperature. Then it goes into the bottle bag on the pram. When one of the girls needs a feed, the water is sitting there at the perfect temperature, I mix up the bottle, and we are done: clean, sterilised, ready to go.

It stays warm for hours and hours. If we are out for literally a ten hour day, which I don't recommend with a baby, it will still be warm. Meke Baby's own figure for keeping liquids warm is up to 8 to 10 hours.

How fast does it heat up?

It is as simple as that: away you go, boiling hot water, steam coming off it, and the water went in cold literally a minute ago. While it is warming it is not hot to touch at all: the outside stays really cool. A brilliant, brilliant contraption.

For the record, Meke Baby's figures for the Express Pro are one to three minutes to warm depending on how much liquid you start with and how cold it is, a 500ml capacity for warming and 300ml for boiling, and a range of 35 to 100 degrees, which is how it boils and sterilises as well as warming a bottle. The brand recommends a minimum of 150ml in it, and lists it at $209.

Clips to the pram, charges off the phone charger

The strap clips onto most pram attachments, so we just clip it onto the pram and away we go. Charging is by USB-C, so it plugs into your normal phone charger, and for us one recharge lasted a good couple of days. Meke Baby rates the battery at up to 30 hours on a charge.

What about when the bottle years are over?

We have taken it out for the adults too. My husband and I went to a meeting with the kids along, felt like a cup of tea, and it warmed those up as well. Once your children have grown out of the feeding stage, it keeps going on beverages and keeping things warm, wherever you need hot water on the go.

The cleaning brushes that came with it

A set of Meke Baby cleaning brushes came free with the warmer, and these are so good. The main brush reaches right to the bottom of a wide bottle, and it clips into a nifty little compartment in the handle so you have an extra long reach when you need it. The small ones are great for cleaning straws.

They are silicone, so you don't get those gross brush hairs that can grow mould and get really yuck, and I think that is what keeps them so clean. They go in the dishwasher, then detach and go back into that little compartment. I actually use the long one for our adult drink bottles as well, the tall Frank Green sort, and it cleans them out brilliantly.