Storing Expressed Breast Milk

Hi A.. I just started pumping and use the gerber freezer safe bm strorage bags. I found they work absolutely wonderful! They hold 6oz each but I usually only fill them to 4oz to try and reduce the amount of wasted milk. The stroage bags can be used for the drop-in bottles, I use the nuk bottles that are supposed to stimulate and support breast feeding. I recommend to build you supply of frozen milk but you can always use some fresh and some frozen for the week. Good luck!!!

I used the Storage tray from First year..comes in a pack of two and used gerber bags. Store them in freezer. when you are going for work, takeot her daily supply and put it in fridge to thaw. (be conservative in the quantity you thaw. As you can supplement with formula..so as not to waste the gold liquid.

All the best.

Hi A.,

I used the Lansinoh bags as well. I froze 2 ounces at a time. I know it doesn't sound like allot, but I froze 4 ounces while I was on maternity leave and used it pretty quick (sometimes my husband fed her at night). When I went back to work, some milk was being wasted during the day (thawing two 4 oz bags and she only drank 6 oz of the 8). It was easier to add milk than take it away. I also found the more water I drank the more milk I produced. I pumped at work 4 times a day as well. You start to feel like you are a cow. I kept my electic pump at work during the week and strictly breastfed when I got home. I did bring it home on the weekends and pumped up my supply for the week as much as I could.

Good luck going back to work.

I used both the Lansinoh and Gerber bags. I bought plastic shoeboxes from the Container Store. I put 4 oz in each bag and sealed the bags after marking the date and laid them flat to freeze so they froze into a nice card shape. Then I stored the bags on their sides in the boxes with the lid on (so nothing was set on top, because the sides of the bags would get splits in them otherwise). I kept them in order by date so I could use the oldest milk first. As I accumulated a stash, I stacked the boxes in the freezer by order of date too. One plastic shoebox can hold about twenty 4-oz bags, 80 oz.

Because the thawed milk has to be used in 24 hours and our son didn't always use all the milk I sent and I didn't want it wasted, I only sent one or two bottles of thawed milk each day and the rest I sent was fresh from pumping the day before so it could be sent back the next day if it wasn't used. I used masking tape for labels and numbered the prepared bottles in the order they were to be used, and the thawed milk bottles were always the first ones to be used.

Each day's pumped milk went to make up a few fresh bottles for the next day and I froze the rest.

For more support, there is a Yahoo group called BFWorkingMoms. Good luck !

Hi A.,
I like the Lansinoh bags - I believe they are BPA free. They seem to be a little more sturdy in the freezer. I connect the Medela bottles (also BPA free) to the pump and either leave the milk in the bottles if it is going to be used soon or transfer it to a bag if I am going to put it into our deep freeze. Good luck pumping!! And congrats on the new baby!
T.

I used the Lansinoh bags. They would lay flat in the freezer and had a double-zip seal. I absolutely loved them!

I personally used the Evenflow BM storage bottles from target and I got 2 of the rolling racks one for the fridge and one for the freezer and I had probably about 30 of the 4oz storage bottles... I loved the fact that we could rotate the milk in and out once it was chilled we moved it to the freezer and when we knew I would be gone the next day for whatever purpose we would grab out 5 bottles and put them into the fridge to thaw and if I had to go somewhere unplanned all hubby had to do was run warm water over the bottle till it was warm and then pop on a nipple...

A.- I used a Medela PIS to pump with, then would empty the bm into the Gerber breastmilk storage bags to refrigerate/freeze. Then I'd just drop one in a playtex drop-in bottle to feed my little guy. It worked well for us; I pumped until he was 13 months old.
E.

I also liked the pump in style and the gerber bags. However, I eventually developed a stockpile of the medela and evenflo 4-6 oz plastic bottles (available at target) as my supply ran lower and I was basically giving the pumped milk as fast as I could produce it (so the bottles were not in the freezer for very long). The medela and evenflo small bottles also come with lids that have the ring/disc that fits with a nipple.

Loved Lansinoh bags, lay them flat on top of each other on a shelf in the freezer, and you don't need a storage container (I found they store better flat). Then, just pull them out the day before you need them, put them in the fridge and they will thaw just fine. If you need to thaw quickly, put it in a bowl of hot water. Works like a charm. Best of luck to you as you go back to work!

I found these AWESOME storage trays...just bought some for my upcoming birth. http://cgi.ebay.com/SLIM-LINES-breast-milk-breastmilk-sto...
You pour your milk in the trays and freeze. They make 1 oz sticks and are narrow enough to fit through the opening of any bottle. Once they are frozen, you can pop out the sticks and store them in a regular freezer bag.

I use Playtex bottles. The nipples are nice and wide like a breast and if you get the natural latex, they also stretch more like a breast. You can use the drop in liners and heat them in warm water...no BPA worries and easy clean up. Playtex also has some adapters you can use to pump directly into the drop in liners from Avent or Medela pumps if you think you will be using the milk soon, this way you never have to touch it, and you don't have to wash the extra bottles from the pump.