I was doing the night feeds. This was the arrangement my partner and I had agreed on: she handled the daytime feeds, I handled the nights. It was a fair division of labour that I had agreed to with confidence at about thirty-eight weeks of pregnancy and was reconsidering with considerably less confidence at 3am on a Tuesday in November.
My name is Liam Donoghue. I am a quantity surveyor from Dublin, and my daughter Cara was six weeks old and feeding twice a night. The feeds themselves were manageable. The surrounding logistics were less so. Specifically: finding the bottle in the dark without turning on a light that would wake Cara up, and dealing with the wind and discomfort that followed each feed, which had been causing her to cry for twenty to thirty minutes afterwards and which I had been told was colic.
The Two Problems
The bottle-finding problem sounds trivial. It was not trivial at 3am when you are operating on four hours of sleep and trying not to wake a baby who has just fallen asleep. I had been using my phone torch, which was bright enough to disturb Cara, and putting the bottle in the same place every night, which worked until it did not. The colic problem was more significant: Cara was uncomfortable after feeds in a way that was distressing for her and exhausting for me, and I had been trying various bottles with varying degrees of success.
A colleague at work who had been through the same stage with his son mentioned the Mamajoo Anti-Colic Glow PP Baby Bottle. The glow-in-the-dark ring was the detail that caught my attention first, because it addressed the bottle-finding problem directly. The anti-colic valve was the detail that mattered more, because it addressed the colic problem. The breast-shaped silicone teat was designed to support natural feeding and reduce the confusion that can come from switching between breast and bottle. BPA-free PP material, dishwasher safe, can be sterilised by boiling. 250ml capacity, right for a six-month-plus feed. At £1.99, the price made it a completely risk-free trial.
I ordered it that evening. It arrived the next day.
The First Night Feed
I charged the glow ring by leaving the bottle near the lamp for a few minutes before bed, as the instructions suggested. At 3am, when Cara woke, I reached for the bottle in the dark. The ring glowed. I found it immediately, without the phone torch, without turning on a light, without disturbing Cara any more than the feed itself required.
Cara took the breast-shaped teat without any resistance, which had not always been the case with other bottles. The feed went smoothly. Afterwards, I waited for the usual twenty to thirty minutes of wind and discomfort. It did not come. She settled within about five minutes and went back to sleep.
I lay in the dark for a moment genuinely surprised. Then I went back to sleep myself, which at that point in my life was the most valuable thing I could do.
Four Months On
The Mamajoo bottle became our primary bottle within a week. The colic improvement was consistent: Cara settled after feeds in a way she had not done with the previous bottles, and the twenty to thirty minute post-feed distress period reduced to five minutes and then to essentially nothing. I do not know whether this was entirely the anti-colic valve or partly Cara growing out of the worst of the colic, but the timing of the improvement was clear enough that I was not inclined to change anything.
The glow ring continued to work reliably throughout. The trick of leaving it near the lamp before bed became automatic, and finding the bottle in the dark became a non-issue. That sounds like a small thing. At 3am, it was not a small thing.
The bottle has been through the dishwasher many times and has not warped or discoloured. The teat has not degraded. The glow ring still charges and glows. At £1.99, it is the best value baby product I bought in the first year.
I have recommended it to three friends who have had babies since Cara was born. All three are using it. One of them, who had been dealing with the same colic situation I had, messaged me at 4am on a Thursday to say the first feed with the new bottle had gone smoothly and Cara had settled in five minutes. I told him I understood exactly how significant that was at 4am on a Thursday.
The Verdict
If you are doing night feeds and you are fumbling around in the dark for a bottle, get one with a glow ring. If your baby has colic or wind after feeds, try an anti-colic valve. The Mamajoo bottle does both, costs £1.99, and is the kind of product that makes a genuine practical difference to the hardest part of early parenthood. It is not a luxury. It is a solution.
Find the Mamajoo Anti-Colic Glow PP Baby Bottle 250ml at ALTOE. Listed in Latest Products, Baby & Toddler, Nursing & Feeding, Baby Bottles, and Feeding Essentials.
Charge the glow ring. Find the bottle. Go back to sleep.
— Liam Donoghue, Dublin
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