Questions - storing BM

[hbomdiggity]

I'm starting to build a stash and have a couple of questions:

1. How do you portion? Right now DS seems to take 4oz bottles, but is only 5 weeks so I assume this could increase (he has taken 4 oz since the first week home)? I typically have more than 4 oz, recently as much as 6oz. Should I just store whatever the excess or make smaller portions?

2. Is it really only good for 3 months in the freezer? That doesn't seem like very long. Baring some major issue I don't know that I would even need this milk within 3 mos.

[smock]

1. Lots of people suggest having some smaller bags (1-2 oz) in case you need a different amount than 4 oz. I usually froze 3-5 oz in a bag, and that worked out fine with no problems.

2. Frozen milk should be good for 6 months in the freezer. You should rotate your freezer stash--i.e. I would freeze Friday's pumped milk and thaw the oldest milk to send to daycare on Monday.

[badtzmaru22]

I always did 4oz portions, but every once in a while I have a 5oz bag in there, and that's fine too.

Three months? No way. It's good for 6+. If you don't have a separate deep freezer, just store it in the back, and make sure it's well insulated, like stack other frozen stuff around it.

[Blue Moon]

I would store a variety of amounts. My DD leveled off at 5oz bottles pretty early, so I stored in 5oz portions. There were a few times I just needed an oz or two to top off her daycare bottles and I was annoyed that I only had 5oz bags. Also, now that my DD is older (11 months) and eating solids pretty well, she often is satisfied with just 3.5 or 4 oz now.

I always used the 6 month rule for BM in the freezer. I've fed my DD 6 month old milk (actually- it might have been closer to 7) and it smelled fine. DD drank it no problem. I do rotate out milk if it's coming up on the 6 month mark as best I can. Ie, defrost a frozen bag to give DD, freeze the fresh milk I pumped in its place to rotate the stash.

[sunshine608]

I always did 1-3 oz portions but DS only took 3oz bottles the entire year. If yours take 4 oz I would probably do 2-4 ounce portions.

2. Depends on the Freezer and I think it's 3-6 months in a regular freezer. We ended up buying a deep freezer ( and using my moms) and it last for 6-12 months in those. I pushed closer to the 6 month date in the regular freezer as long as it smelled fine and he would drink it.

[nachos]

I used to freeze mine in ice cube trays and transfer the cubes to larger freezer bags. Each cube was slightly under 1oz. I would pull out enough for a day and seal up the rest. We used it for bottles, sippy cups and mixing with cereal.

The milk is good for up to a year in a chest freezer, as long as you rotate the stash.

[laurenh]

I always do 6 oz bags now because I am feeding twins, but with DD1 I typically did 6 oz bags too because I knew I could always use it if defrosted.

Definitely 6 months in a standard freezer as long as it stays at the correct temp. My milk always goes into a chest freezer and I keep for 12 months (but do try to rotate). I tend to pull 1 or 2 bags a week just to not end up with a ton in the freezer that would be too old.

[genet313]

Most of the time I store whatever I pump in a session - usually that's anywhere between 3-5 oz depending on time of day.  If I pump more than 5 oz, I put the excess into a new bag and use it for food prep.  

No idea re: storage, but I try to rotate my stash so I'm not using anything that's much over 3 months.  I've heard anything from 6-12 months.

Can I also ask a Q:  Is there some more environmentally friendly way to store than the plastic bags but not necessarily ice cub trays?  I love how convenient they are but I feel so wasteful.  Is it possible to clean them out and re-use them?  Steam them perhaps?   And if you use ice cube trays...how do you mark them to know the date?

[linz]

1. I did 6 oz freezer. If you want to just do 4 you can leave excess in fridge until you have 4 oz. You can mix fresh pumped with cold milk - some will tell you not to but I always have and my kids are fine.

2. It's good up to 1 year if in deep freeze. I just used milk from December and it was fine.

[linz]

Also mine just hit 5 oz at 9 months. You could always do 5-6 oz and if you have extra just mix that in with fresh for a bottle to make sure it gets used first since fresh can be in the fridge for 5 days.

[perkyderky]

I stored my milk in anywhere from 4-6 oz. I did make some smaller 1-2 oz bags, but we never really needed it. We're still using the milk from January, it's just in a regular freezer, and it's been fine. I do wonder if the freezer length has more to do with lose of nutrients vs. freezer burn or anything like that.

[nachos]

Jul 29, 2015 8:34:19 GMT -5 genet313 said:

Most of the time I store whatever I pump in a session - usually that's anywhere between 3-5 oz depending on time of day.  If I pump more than 5 oz, I put the excess into a new bag and use it for food prep.  

No idea re: storage, but I try to rotate my stash so I'm not using anything that's much over 3 months.  I've heard anything from 6-12 months.

Can I also ask a Q:  Is there some more environmentally friendly way to store than the plastic bags but not necessarily ice cub trays?  I love how convenient they are but I feel so wasteful.  Is it possible to clean them out and re-use them?  Steam them perhaps?   And if you use ice cube trays...how do you mark them to know the date?

I used different coloured trays to freeze the cubes, then transferred them to large freezer bags, and dated the bags "week of ______"

[jennistarr1]

If you get 6 oz, I would make one 4 ounce bag and one 2 ounce bag. 

If you have a deep freezer chest, you can do up to 12 months...if not it's 3 months I think because you're opening and closing the freezer door so much.  You should always use the oldest milk first so in my situation, I can't see ever having milk that is more than 3 months old (like everything in my freezer now is from July)

[Deleted]

I do 5oz because that's what my storage bottles hold and DS is exclusively bottle fed, so as long as I just thaw a couple bags at a time it can be eaten.

You can do some 4 and some 6. If your baby is in daycare I assume you will send 3-4 bottles a day so it would get used.