freezing breast milk

inkie

Hi i'm a midwife and offer the following:

Congratulations on making the decision to give your baby the best food possible!
As the pre-sterilised bags are ridiculously expensive, get hold of a few robust, sealable, plastic containers that you can sterilise - either steam or chemical, or top rack of the dishwasher.
The obvious thing here is to get the containers that attatch directly to the breast pump - but hand-expresing is more MSE, and do-able once you get the nack!
Do not introduce a bottle to a breast-fed baby until breastfeeding fully established and think carefully before you do - those times when baby is wanting to nurse more are often the times when people are tempted to give a bottle, but this is the time to invest in extra feeding to keep up with the demand.
From a personal point of view - often when freezing my EBM in those bags (only bought one packet!), I would find that the corners of the bag would puncture due to being sharp when they were frozen.

Hope all goes well. I recommend a book 'Sucessful breastfeeding' by the RCM, with all the evidence based practice in.

spiddy100

Another brilliant book is Bestfeeding by Mary Renfrew - really helped me with BFing both of my two

Do you use any of the parenting forums online? There are usually people with drawers full of unused BM bags and other equipment which they are happy to pass on for the cost of postage. I got a whole bagful from one lady, used a handful of them then passed them on to someone else! I never really got on with expressing, although I had loads of milk - it was always easier to feed the baby myself than to pre-express a feed then persuade him to take a bottle! Alternatively, it might well be worth asking on Freecycle to see if anyone has any to pass on.

I wouldn't worry too much about getting these yet, as the others said it's not normally advised to start expressing until your baby's feeding is well established (about 6 weeks old or later) so you'll have time to sort it out then. I found the Avent Isis pump brilliant, so it was good for me to get Avent bottles etc to go with it, but you might find your baby prefers a different make of bottle, in which case you might want the pump and storage bags etc to go with those.

Good luck with everything and definitely ask if you need any help with the breastfeeding - it can be hard but it gets easier

morganb

Hi; I breastfed both of mine until they were two, hadn't intended to, but they just kept going, and were not ones for being weaned off!
As I stayed at home for longer with number 2, and had absolutely no time to express with a toddler as well, I didn't freeze any b.milk but I did do so for number 1;the freezer bags are v. expensive, can get damaged in the freezer and can leak. I found them quite fiddly and wouldn't recommend them. Also, a load of them defrosted at one point, which as you can imagine was very upsetting indeed.
The Avent Via system is excellent and if you go to their website they used to give away a sample pack which is well worth looking for. I dont' know if they still do; but I then used all these for freezing pureed food etc when weaning. In fact, I still have a load of them floating around and use these as snack pots for nursery, etc., so I definitely got my moneys worth!
Might also be something you could suggest if people want to buy you something 'practical' (dont' know about you but I'd rather spend my money on a cute baby outfit and let someone else buy me bottles, etc!!!)

GOod luck!!!

twistyfing

I also used sterilised ice-cube trays (bought for the purpose!) they were ideal for freezing portions of breast milk and also home made baby food later.

At least by having tiny frozen portions you dont end up thawing too much which doesnt get used because expressing can be quite a challenge...


Good luck

vivaladiva

I breastfed all 4 of mine (not at once!:eek: )for over 12 months. Was really cautious with the first but that all went out the window after No 2 who crawled at 4 months old and must have picked up goodness knows what off various floors! I don't recall sterilising anything for the last two. On the rare occasions I had enough milk to freeze I stuck it in an ice-cube tray just like pureed food.

The La Leche League produce some great leaflets on Breastfeeding (I don't know if they are still going - my eldest is 14!)

Clive_Woody

Obviously only speaking from a spectators point of view, but as the father of a gorgeous 8 month old little girl, you can store expressed milk in the fridge for a reasonable amount of time (depends on how cold your fridge is and if it is subject to big changes in temp - your midewife HV should be able to advise).

Most AVENT bottles can go into the freezer, this has the advantage of being able to connect straight to the pump, and when de-frosted just fit a teat and off you go (not a cheap option, but it depends how much you plan on storing in the freezer.

There are many different pumps out that (we tried a lot of them). You may be able to hire one from your local mat ward, speak to them first before you rush out and buy one (you hire the pump and buy the bottles and connectors so no worries about using second hand parts that the milk will come into contact with). Manual hand pumps are the cheapest, but if your milk doesn't come gushing out you may end up with a very tired wrist. Electric pumps are good and we ended up with an Avent one, it wasn't cheap, but when you are exhausted and you have a screaming hungry baby suddenly money seems a lot less important.

As somebody mentioned ice-cube trays are a great idea (check they will fit in your sterilser) as once frozen you can pop the cubes into a bag and store in the freezer then the tray can be reused. When ready you can then defrost enough milk as required rather than getting a whole bottle out and throwing some away.

Although breast feeding is the most natural thing, it is something you will both have to learn. Babies (well our little dear anyway) took some time to get the hang of it, but now she loves it and so does mum. A lot of mat wards run breast feeding clinics which are life savers, and a very valuable source of help and guidance and are staffed by lovely people.

Best advice I can give now is sleep as much as you can before the little one arrives, because afterwards the fun really begins.

elljay20

i just used to freeze my breast milk in the bottles. don't know if this is the right way but i newer hadany problems? good luck!

Psykicpup

I only ever expressed when I had too much milk then stored it in the fridge so hubby could do a night feed for me. I could never get on with the pumps (except 'Daisy' in the maternity ward lol big OLD electric thing!) so I expressed by hand, I found it quite easy & I got to be very accurate with my aim too -I once got a friend sitting on the other end of the bed right in the ear!

lil_me

I got mine in Boots, had to use them as my son was in special care, used to freeze it then take it in with me. Avent pump worked the best for me.

Justamum

Not everybody can express. I could feed for England, but couldn't express even a tablespoonful! However as I fed on demand there was no need to anyway. I've always been a bit puzzled as to why anyone would want to freeze it when you will be producing the stuff continuously.