Philadelphia Nesties
tracyd21
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
storing frozen breastmilk
From what I am reading, BF babies eat 3-4 oz BM in a bottle - at least when they are still eating 8 times a day. So when you freeze your milk in bags, how much do you put in each bag - a bottle's worth or fill it up? I pumped 5 oz this morning but I was super full since DD slept a very long time between feedings compared to normal.
Also, when you make bottles for when you won't be there to nurse, how much do you put in bottles? Do you add 3oz, 4oz, or send an empty bottle that they can re-use and storage bags?
My parents are watching DD next Saturday for several hours so I am trying to figure this out. They have only dealt with formula in the past.
Re: storing frozen breastmilk
I always stored 3-4ozs in a bag. If he needed more it was quick to defrost, you usually have a good idea that they need more before you are done and I didn't want to have too much defrosted to throw away.
When I knew there was going to be at least one bottle used, I would unthaw some or just used what I had pumped that day. Then make sure they knew where the milk was, how to defrost it and made sure there were clean bottles easily accessible. Granted I didn't do this very often.
I never put more than 3 oz in a bag (also - what bags are you using? Some are better than others). It's quicker to thaw with less in it and easier to add 1-2 oz if you need additional vs. thawing another 3 and then having to throw out extra unused.
So, in your case if you pumped 5 oz: if it was my milk, I would probably store 2.5 and 2.5 or 2 and 3 oz.
Others may provide better advice as I was usually not away for more than 1 feeding but I would say:
- don't put any milk in the bottle. You never know what may happen - baby sleeps, baby refuses the bottle, etc. I always left frozen bags. Once you thaw, you can't re-freeze.
- Once it's in the bottle and touches her mouth, theoretically you can use it at room temp for the next feeding but then you have to toss it.
- I would also leave more than 1 empty bottle. DH and I are pretty anal about bottle washing. You know what they say about something you want done right :-) Plus it's less work for the caregiver.
General rule of thumb I've read is about 1 to 1.5 oz for each hour you're going to be away. This is hard for people who have experience dealing with formula as they are used to giving bigger bottles. What you'd like to avoid is they give her 4-5 oz in 2 hours and then you come home to nurse and she's passed out milk drunk (you could pump at that point if necessary).
In the beginning I was like Lachute and I stored milk in 1-2oz increments so I could mix and match amounts. Once she settled on a pretty consistent amount I started freezing bags in that amount and here and there Id have an ounce or two left over that would get stored separately which was always good for the occasional growth spurt.
I sent along one bottle per feeding that I expected to miss just to make things easier for the caregiver, and however many bags of milk made up those bottles. Luckily our caregiver was a friend who also EBF so she was very knowledgeable about how to deal with breastmilk, but it is kind of confusing to people that havent done it before. Even now, I forget so many of the details and its been less than 2 years since I did it!
I exclusively pumped.
I typically did 3 oz in every bottle and if I pumped 5 oz that session, I would divvy it up and freeze 3 oz and leave the other 2 oz in the fridge until the next pumping session. However, what I never really took into account was that as she grew, she ate more and more and instead of upping my 3 oz to let's say 5 oz to keep up, it became pretty burdensome to defrost several bags after another.
Additionally, I should have rotated my freezer bags and used them daily/weekly to keep it updated with what she was drinking (if that makes sense). For example, until I was basically forced to stop pumping when just one boob wasn't enough, I starting going through my freezer stash starting from the 'oldest' which was when she was only a week or so old. That milk was clearly significantly different, in color, texture, and obviously taste, that she refused to drink it. I tried everything but about one month of stash was wasted. I should have rotated it every week to keep up with my changing milk since a 6 month old didn't want to drink what her 3 week old self would eat. I hope that is not too confusing but wish someone would have told me this prior otherwise I could have gotten another month out of breast milk instead of formula.
Thanks, ladies! I think I'll start out with a mix until we figure out how much she will eat at once.
Matthew - makes perfect sense - thanks!