Breastfeeding Moms
Replies
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i say do what you feel you're comfortable with. My friend would defrost the bags overnight in the refrigerator, and in the am would put them in the bottles with the oz she wanted them to feed her, (example, each bottle never had more than 3 oz in it). she used the freezer milk because she had built up a little stock pile. i've heard that you should use the milk that you most recently pumped. so put that into bottles and take them instead of bags.
but you may be able to avoid all this confusion and just talk to the individuals that will be in charge of your child's care, they may be perfectly ok doing the legwork themselves and transferring the milk from bag to bottle.
hope this helps =)
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Personally I freeze in bags, 2 oz per bag and send them each day frozen. I lay the bags flat in the freezer to freeze then I store them up right. They are really quick to thaw that way. My LO is almost 11 months and he gets 2oz every 2 hours or so. I only send one bottle and she washes it each time.
I agree with pp to talk to your provider and see how they would like to do things.
The biggest issue usually is educating your provider on how to bottle feed a breast fed baby. I think kellymom.com has some good articles you can print and share with your provider. -
Bring them however is easier for you. There's no wrong answer. Bags are fine, bottles are fine, if the daycare hasn't told you their policy/preference.
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I use the playtex drop in bottles.
Breastmilk is best fresh. And fresh breastmilk is good in the fridge for 5-7 days.
So, after I get home from work I prepare the bottles of milk for the next day and store them in the fridge. Even if its going to be a couple of days between shifts, I do this. And never more than 3 oz in a bottle, no matter the age.
The extra milk I have left over gets frozen in ice cube trays, then transferred to ziplock freezer bags. Each cube is about an oz. -
I try to use my milk fresh when possible. My mom cares for my baby in my home so I pump right into the bottles in the morning. When I get home from work I transfer whatever I pumped into bottles for the next day. I even out the bottles for the next day and put any extra in a bag for my freezer stash. I try to make it as easy as possible for my mom. I would just speak to the caregiver ands decide what works best. -
I went back to work full-time after 6 weeks, and LO is now almost 5 months old. I've been pumping the whole time so I tried a few different things.
First, you should probably just ask your daycare provider what she prefers or if she even has a preference. If she has had a lot of experience with BF moms then she probably doesn't care how you package the milk.
But if you want another viewpoint: I pump my milk into the Medela bottles and then transfer the milk to Lansinoh bags immediately after pumping. I refrigerate the bags in the work fridge (in the black box that came with my pump), and those bags are what I take to daycare. My husband also feeds a bottle before daycare (I leave at 8 and he leaves at 10 in the morning, and he's the one who drops LO off), so my first pumping session I just leave in the medela bottle. He prefers to pour the milk from the Medela bottle into our Avent bottles for feeding (the nippkles aren't compatible or he'd just use the same bottle). DH thinks that it's easier to warm up the milk in the bottle, but the daycare has no preference. The bags are better for me because I can write the date and time on them.
At first I tried to freeze my milk, but it became immediately apparent that I was never going to have a stockpile. I went through my little stockpile after the first growth spurt, and now I just pump for the next day and usually make exactly enough. Sometimes I have to throw in extra pumping sessions in the morning or weekend, but it works out. If you freeze the milk, you can't refreeze once it has thawed even a little. That means that transferring the milk to daycare is more problematic, and you have to trust the daycare to keep the milk in the coldest part of the freezer. (I don't trust her to. I noticed that my own freezer has warmer spots in it near the icemaker, and stuff can actually thaw even on the coldest setting.) So I just keep the milk fresh and make sure to use everything within a week, which is very easy.
I've heard from other moms that you should definitely spring for the Lansinoh bags. I haven't used anything else and they're great. I have heard that there are problems with other brands like Medela bags.
That was long, sorry!
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You probably don't want to bring frozen milk more than once a week. If you will be bringing frozen, move it to the fridge the night before and put it in the fridge at daycare then it will be thawed or mostly thawed by the time it is given.
From:
Returning to Work: The Breastfeeding Mother’s Guide
In order for your baby to get the most anti-infective properties from your milk, it is best to offer it fresh whenever possible. Freezing has been found to denature some of the antibodies and kill some of the living cells in milk (Orlando, 2006; Buckley & Charles, 2006). Whether fresh or frozen, your milk provides all the nutrition your baby needs, and you can count on your milk to support your baby in all areas of growth and development.
Here is a schedule many working mothers recommend for using frozen milk. With this system, your baby gets more fresh milk and therefore the best possible nutrition and immune factors to protect him from illness:- Pump on Monday; give this milk to your babysitter to use on Tuesday.
- Pump on Tuesday; use this milk on Wednesday and so on until Friday.
- Pump on Friday, label with the date, and freeze this milk; put it in the back of the freezer.
- Use the oldest milk in the freezer for Monday.
- Use your freezer stash only when you have an unusual need for extra milk, for example, when your baby is going through a growth spurt or you accidentally spill all of your freshly-pumped milk.
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Omg so much great info thank you soooo much!!!
Quoting thalia7758:
I went back to work full-time after 6 weeks, and LO is now almost 5 months old. I've been pumping the whole time so I tried a few different things.
First, you should probably just ask your daycare provider what she prefers or if she even has a preference. If she has had a lot of experience with BF moms then she probably doesn't care how you package the milk.
But if you want another viewpoint: I pump my milk into the Medela bottles and then transfer the milk to Lansinoh bags immediately after pumping. I refrigerate the bags in the work fridge (in the black box that came with my pump), and those bags are what I take to daycare. My husband also feeds a bottle before daycare (I leave at 8 and he leaves at 10 in the morning, and he's the one who drops LO off), so my first pumping session I just leave in the medela bottle. He prefers to pour the milk from the Medela bottle into our Avent bottles for feeding (the nippkles aren't compatible or he'd just use the same bottle). DH thinks that it's easier to warm up the milk in the bottle, but the daycare has no preference. The bags are better for me because I can write the date and time on them.
At first I tried to freeze my milk, but it became immediately apparent that I was never going to have a stockpile. I went through my little stockpile after the first growth spurt, and now I just pump for the next day and usually make exactly enough. Sometimes I have to throw in extra pumping sessions in the morning or weekend, but it works out. If you freeze the milk, you can't refreeze once it has thawed even a little. That means that transferring the milk to daycare is more problematic, and you have to trust the daycare to keep the milk in the coldest part of the freezer. (I don't trust her to. I noticed that my own freezer has warmer spots in it near the icemaker, and stuff can actually thaw even on the coldest setting.) So I just keep the milk fresh and make sure to use everything within a week, which is very easy.
I've heard from other moms that you should definitely spring for the Lansinoh bags. I haven't used anything else and they're great. I have heard that there are problems with other brands like Medela bags.
That was long, sorry!
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Thank you so much
Quoting maggiemom2000:
You probably don't want to bring frozen milk more than once a week. If you will be bringing frozen, move it to the fridge the night before and put it in the fridge at daycare then it will be thawed or mostly thawed by the time it is given.
From:
Returning to Work: The Breastfeeding Mother’s Guide
In order for your baby to get the most anti-infective properties from your milk, it is best to offer it fresh whenever possible. Freezing has been found to denature some of the antibodies and kill some of the living cells in milk (Orlando, 2006; Buckley & Charles, 2006). Whether fresh or frozen, your milk provides all the nutrition your baby needs, and you can count on your milk to support your baby in all areas of growth and development.
Here is a schedule many working mothers recommend for using frozen milk. With this system, your baby gets more fresh milk and therefore the best possible nutrition and immune factors to protect him from illness:- Pump on Monday; give this milk to your babysitter to use on Tuesday.
- Pump on Tuesday; use this milk on Wednesday and so on until Friday.
- Pump on Friday, label with the date, and freeze this milk; put it in the back of the freezer.
- Use the oldest milk in the freezer for Monday.
- Use your freezer stash only when you have an unusual need for extra milk, for example, when your baby is going through a growth spurt or you accidentally spill all of your freshly-pumped milk.
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I sent bottles labeled with the time to be fed. My provider was awesome and really listened to all of the advice on how to bottle feed a breastfed baby, so the times on the bottles were used more as a rough guide for her.
What I pumped at work was used for the next day at daycare. The milk i pumped the last work day of the week went into bags labeled with the date in the freezer. Milk I pumped on days I didn't work went into the freezer as well. The first workday of the week I used the oldest milk from the freezer. I put it into the fridge the night before and then made bottles labeled with the time to be fed.