Review and Giveaway: Bib’ Expresso!

Beaba Bib’Expresso

A Little Background

Hello SippyCupMom readers! I’m happy to be able to join the contributors here and share some thoughts with you. Just a little about me before we get into the review of Bib’Expresso. My wife Devon and I have been married for just over three years and we recently welcomed our first baby. Grayson was born on 6/14/2011 and as I’m sure most of you reading this will admit, no matter how ready you seem to be, things are much more different than planned. As different as life has become, it’s been the most amazing seven weeks of our lives. Seeing Grayson grow and develop has been great and we are looking forward to what the future holds.

The Bottle Warming Battle

As new parents, one of the greatest bonding times we get to have with our babies is when we are feeding them. However, one of the most daunting pieces of this process is often the bottle preparation itself – scooping the formula, measuring the water, and heating the bottle. The scooping and measuring pieces aren’t too difficult, but the warming process can become a bit of a drain. The most frequent methods for this are running the bottle under warm water or using an actual bottle warmer. 

Devon and I started heating bottles using warm water, this worked great with our Playtex Drop-Ins, but when we had to make the switch to Dr. Brown’s this process became painfully slow. Our attempt to speed this process up led to the purchase of a bottle warmer and formula mixing pitcher. With that combination, we eliminated the scooping for each bottle and cut the warming time from 10 – 15 minutes down to about 4 minutes. This was one of the best decisions we made and we felt like this was going to be the best we could do with this process. That is, until we saw a write-up about the Beaba Bib’Expresso.

The Beaba Bib’Expresso

First off, before I even read the article about the Bib’Expresso I was drawn to it by the looks. It appeared sleek, fun colored, and like something I wouldn’t mind having sit on the kitchen counter – much better looking than the plain old bottle warmer. After getting past the picture, I decided to see what this was and as I read the description, I was more and more excited. You see, it made it all so simple, much like a coffee maker  – pour in water, heat water, add formula to bottle, and push button to dispense perfectly heated water. I thought it really couldn’t be that simple, but I wanted to give it a try. So, off we were to try and get one of these for our own testing and review. 

A few days later, our Bib’Expresso arrived and we were set to try it out. Setup was quick and easy, basically removing from the box, plugging it in, and running a couple cleaning cycles through the machine. The Bib’Expresso makes this cleaning process very easy. Once these steps were complete, we were ready to give it a go. The Bib’Expresso actually does three things, it can:

1. Warm water for bottles
2. Be a water bath for heating bottles or jars of food. It actually separates into a smaller, easy to pack unit if you want to just use this method.
3. Act as a sterilizer and storage unit for bottles, pacifiers, small toys, etc. 

Our primary use – at least for now with Grayson was going to be to try out the bottle making process.

A Bottle in Less than a Minute

Don’t believe me? Keep on reading. 

So it was time to give this machine a run and see if it held up to all my hopes and dreams. A quick read through the steps for making a bottle and we were set to go. I mentioned them above, but here you go again:

1. Fill your bottle with the desired amount of water
2. Pour the water from the bottle into the heating chamber of the Bib’Expresso
3. Press the heat button on the Bib’Expresso
4. While the water heats (about 20 – 25 seconds) measure your formula into the bottle
5. Place your bottle with formula under the dispensing nozzle on the unit
6. Wait for the beep then push and hold the dispense button
7. Shake or swirl your bottle to mix

Seven steps and less than 1 minute to your perfectly heated bottle. To see this process in action, you can take a look at the included video.

This process really was simple and efficient. Not to mention the other options that the Bib’Expresso provides. Our bottle warming battles seemed to be over. The 10 – 15 minutes of running warm water was definitely a thing of the past and the bottle warmer now seemed so slow in comparison.

While it sped up the process, we did notice one downfall that is due to our feeding situation with Grayson. We are using Enfamil AR formula, which is much thicker than the standard formula, and are also using Dr. Brown’s bottles. This combination makes for some tough mixing in Step 7 above without the ability to really shake the bottle and the thicker AR formula did have a tendency to clump sometimes. However, I think this is just a factor of our situation.

Comparisons

Below is a quick look at the Pros and Cons of the different bottle prep methods we have used and I’m sure some of you reading this may have others you could think of to add to this list.

The Verdict

Well, now for the big question –  would I recommend the Bib’Expresso? Yes, the speed at which it heats the water for a bottle, even if you need to run two cycles, is quicker than any other method that I know of. Not to mention, the ability to heat jarred food, work as a water bath for bottles, and serve as a sterilizer make it even more useful. As Grayson gets older I’m looking forward to trying out the other features of the Bib’Expresso and also some of Beaba’s other products.

 One lucky reader is going to win the Bib’ Expresso!