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If your Perfect Prep machine is not working in the summer or displays a warning light it may be due to the hot weather. Most people read this post in June or July, prime heatwave time in the UK. The water temperature warning light might suddenly be on in a heatwave, if the water temperature is over 25C. 

Perfect Prep water temperature light – overheating in a heatwave 

Here’s what happened…

Baby H was grumpy for her milk, I was exhausted from frequent feedings and so it was time for her formula bottle. I dumped a bottle under the Perfect Prep machine and hit the button. Nothing happened. I tried again, and then I noticed a new light. This one:

It was at that point I ‘learned’ that in 32C heat, tap water can warm up quite a lot… When I say learned, I really mean realised in the baby brain blur world I’ve been living in, it means realised through exhaustion that if I’m adding ice cubes to drinks, finding water from the tap disgusting and warm to drink, and, having a fridge full of drinks that taste nicer…. this warm water might affect the Perfect Prep.

According to the Tommee Tippee Perfect Prep instructions, this is really only an issue in ‘hotter climates’. I beg to differ, most of the time the UK isn’t classed as a hotter climate! The water in the Perfect Prep machine has to be below 25C for it to work, however, ours was well over that. I added 4 ice cubes and they still didn’t cool it down enough to make poor H a bottle.

The best and quickest solution I found quickly was to empty it and add new ‘cold’ water and a lot of ice cubes!

Other overheating solutions include:

• only put a little water in at a time,

… but I’m useless at topping it up, so I’d have to wait on the filtering process while H gets more and more grumpy,

• keep a jug of water in the fridge.

… I like this option but I need a bigger fridge, mine is crammed full of cold drinks for me!

Sorry, I’m not being selfish, but at the time of the light coming on, there wasn’t any cold water in the fridge that I could use.

Update: June 2019:  sometimes people like to watch instead of read – and like most of my videos this one’s super quick (please like/comment/subscribe if it helps you!) – the video is near the top of the post – but also click here if you didn’t see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgQ91Ih9TKw

Anyway, I do hope this has been a useful post as I struggled to find the information quickly and a quick solution (to the increasingly irate (aka screaming) baby. Hopefully I’ve helped you too – do let me know in the comments!

Feel free to share this post with friends and family so they maybe hear this information before they need it.

If you’re also looking for ideas on how to keep baby cool in a heatwave click here and here for tips on how to keep a baby or toddler’s hat on.

Here is the link to the full excerpt from the Tommee Tippee website – you need to scroll to the bottom FAQ: http://www.tommeetippee.co.uk/support/faqs/perfect-prep-faqs/

Lynne x

PS. We used the Perfect Prep Machine by Tommee Tippee for a bottle of two a day as it was so convenient (check out my review of it here – seriously I rate it as 100% recommended, 10/10 and a “New Mummy Blog Must Buy“)….

My original video on solving the Perfect Prep temperature warning light in a heatwave. Since replaced with a slightly slower version, which you can hopefully read easier.