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If you’re an unique pumper that has sufficient provide to pump additional milk, it’s a good suggestion to begin freezing your milk in breast milk baggage to construct up a breast milk freezer stash.
A freezer stash may be nice for peace of thoughts: it makes it simpler to not cry over spilled breast milk, it’s there for those who expertise a drop in provide, and it helps you not throttle your accomplice after they unintentionally go away the daycare bottles out in a single day on the counter. (Not that that has occurred to me.)
Breast milk doesn’t final within the freezer indefinitely, although. Right here is find out how to be sure you don’t waste any milk by rotating your freezer stash.
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How lengthy can breast milk be saved within the freezer?
The size of time that frozen breast milk might be good within the freezer relies on the kind of freezer that you’re utilizing (extra info is offered right here):
- In a freezer compartment (like in a mini-fridge): 2 weeks
- In every other sort of freezer: As much as 6 months is good, as much as 12 months is suitable
(Be aware: The CDC just lately stopped distinguishing between common freezers and deep freezers, so these tips at the moment are extra easy.)
Due to this fact, relying on how lengthy you need to feed your child breast milk, the earliest milk that you simply freeze could not final so long as you want it to.
That is the place rotating your freezer stash is available in.
Rotating your freezer stash means utilizing the oldest milk that it’s important to feed your child, whereas the newer milk that you simply pump goes into the freezer to exchange it.
Rotating frozen breastmilk: How ought to I take advantage of my freezer stash of breast milk?
There are a few completely different approaches you could take to rotating your freezer stash.
Listed below are the 2 that I used:
1. Choose someday every week the place your child solely eats frozen milk
On today, you’d feed your child your oldest frozen milk. Then, all the milk that you simply pump that day (that you’d have fed to your child) goes into the freezer.
Feeding the frozen milk
To feed your frozen milk, discover your oldest milk within the freezer. In order for you, you may take out about what you suppose you will want and prep your bottles the night time earlier than by thawing your milk within the freezer.
You too can simply pull the milk out of the freezer as you want it and thaw it in heat water.
Freezing the milk you prep
Then you definately’d freeze every part that you simply pump that day – you are able to do it after every session, on the finish of the day, or the following morning.
2. Every single day, give your child one frozen milk bottle
To do that, you’d designate one bottle per day because the “frozen” bottle. This could possibly be at any time of the day; it doesn’t matter when. It could possibly be completely different instances on completely different days, or all the time the identical routine.
Then, you’d freeze the milk that you’d have fed your child at that feeding.
When ought to I begin utilizing my frozen breast milk?
It’s best to begin utilizing your frozen breast milk inside a pair weeks of beginning a freezer stash.
Some individuals have an extra lipase problem the place their milk begins to style unhealthy after a while passes. For these individuals, recent milk and even milk that’s been refrigerated for a while could style effective to their child, however milk that has been frozen tastes soapy.
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Some infants will refuse this milk as a result of style, although it’s protected for child to eat.
There’s a manner round this – you may scald your breast milk after you pump it – however as soon as the milk tastes off, it’s too late, and scalding received’t work.
Since you don’t need to construct up an enormous freezer stash of milk your child received’t drink, it’s a good suggestion to begin utilizing it immediately to check for this problem, even when it’s just some bottles per week to rotate out previous milk.
Is there something I can do to make coping with my breast milk freezer storage simpler?
Freeze your breast milk flat (like bricks) in your breast milk baggage – they take up much less room this fashion.
To be able to know what milk is the oldest, you’ll need to just be sure you label the breast milk bag with the date (for those who’ve mixed milk from greater than someday within the bag, use the sooner date).
Then, manage your baggage so that you don’t have to spend so much of time digging to search out the oldest ones. Some individuals put their baggage into zip-top plastic baggage after which put a big label on the bag with the dates, so they’re straightforward to search out:
Different consideration with frozen breast milk
For those who’d prefer to retailer frozen breast milk after which wean when you may have sufficient to make it to your objective, right here are some suggestions and issues to think about.
Lastly, as you rotate your milk, for those who discover that you’ve too huge of a freezer stash (i.e., no room for grown-up meals), you may contemplate donating your breast milk to a milk financial institution.
Do you rotate your milk? Inform us the way you do it within the feedback!
References
- Bonyata, Kelly. “Human Milk Storage – Fast Reference Card.” https://kellymom.com/retailer/freehandouts/milkstorage01.pdf
- CDC. “Correct Storage and Preparation of Breast Milk.” https://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/suggestions/handling_breastmilk.htm
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