How many oz do you freeze in each bag? DD currently drinks 3-4oz bottles and I have been freezing in 4oz portions. Will I regret this and want smaller bags, or larger bags?
How often do you rotate the old milk with fresh? It seems expensive and wasteful to use all frozen in place of fresh.
How do you store it in your freezer so it is convenient to grab from? I have a chest freezer and right now half of the bags are all over the place, and the other half are stacked on the floor of it. But the oldest dates are on the bottom, which is an issue...
Post by sunshine608 on Dec 22, 2014 14:33:52 GMT -5
I do 1-3 oz. the smaller portions are good to fill a bottle. DS drinks 3oz. I have a few 4oz but I like for a bag to be smaller than a feeding so there is no extra.
I use frozen milk on Mondays and for other unplanned events. I also keep frozen bags at relatives house and use those periodically to stay current.
Each week I put all the freezer bags in a big ziplock bag and put in the deep freezer. I mark the bag and store like that.
I would freeze in 3-4 ounces at a time. You might want some smaller 2 oz. portions but should be okay with 4 oz. bags.
To rotate I would freeze whatever I pumped on Friday and then picked the oldest milk and thawed that for her to drink at daycare on Mondays.
For storage I started with this but it really doesn't hold all that much and takes up lots of room. So then I started using a gift bag as a storage system. This gives a pretty good tutorial. Make sure to freeze flat alone and the once that bag is totally frozen then add it to the top of the bag.
I do 6 oz in each bag to get the most of it. Even if you dont use all per bottle its good for 24 hours once thawed.. I put them in freezer in our kitchen and when I have 8 bags I put them in a freezer bag with dates and then that goes in deep freezer. I havent had to use any bags yet but I will eventually organize the freezer better.
I started with 2oz at a time, and then moved to 4oz bags once he was consistently drinking 4oz bottles.
Like the other posters, I usually froze whatever I pumped on Fridays and then rotated by using frozen milk for Mondays at daycare.
I bought a few of these ice cube bins and stored the milk bags standing up in those, oldest to newest, after freezing flat. It worked out really well for us. If I filled one of those containers, I would put in a giant ziploc bag with date labels on the front for the oldest and newest bag, and put in the deep freezer.
As someone who had a bottle refuser, I would recommend having a few smaller bags. It killed me when I defrosted 4 oz and he drank maybe 0.5 oz.
Definitely agree with this. I only started freezing the 4oz bags that I mentioned above once he stopped refusing the bottle. We had a good month where he only ate about 2oz a day at daycare and lots of milk was wasted.
I freeze in smaller quantities, anywhere from 2-4.5oz. I've never given dd more than 4oz, so I keep it to smaller amounts. I don't mind buying more bags.
I freeze whatever I pump on Fridays and rotate the oldest frozen out on Mondays. I am cutting it close at the moment so last week we rotated out frozen milk twice. I don't want milk to expire and go to waste.
I freeze the Lansinoh bags flat and then gather them into large gallon freezer bags by month.
I would freeze in 3-4 ounces at a time. You might want some smaller 2 oz. portions but should be okay with 4 oz. bags.
To rotate I would freeze whatever I pumped on Friday and then picked the oldest milk and thawed that for her to drink at daycare on Mondays.
For storage I started with this but it really doesn't hold all that much and takes up lots of room. So then I started using a gift bag as a storage system. This gives a pretty good tutorial. Make sure to freeze flat alone and the once that bag is totally frozen then add it to the top of the bag.
I used the same thing but I also flipped the top upside down and used that to hold the bags too. I rarely had more milk than that.
I do 1-3 oz. the smaller portions are good to fill a bottle. DS drinks 3oz. I have a few 4oz but I like for a bag to be smaller than a feeding so there is no extra.
I use frozen milk on Mondays and for other unplanned events. I also keep frozen bags at relatives house and use those periodically to stay current.
Each week I put all the freezer bags in a big ziplock bag and put in the deep freezer. I mark the bag and store like that.
I also froze 1-3oz. I would rather have less, and need to quickly thaw more under running water, than end up with excess.