Breast Milk Storage Tips that Made Our Lives Easier
We weren’t very successful with our attempts to breastfeed our first child. So our second time around, we were a little wary. However, we were luckier this time, and things worked out reasonably well. However, with my wife only having limited time off from work, we had to prepare for dad being at home to feed the little one.
In an effort to maintain the breast milk supply, my wife pumped extra milk like crazy to create a reserve for when I was home alone with baby. This process of building up our breast milk reserve took a little bit of planning and organizing though.
Time Stamping Breast Milk Bags
I quickly realized that to put any sort of order to the breast milk bag filled mess our freezer was quickly becoming, we needed to start time stamping these bags with the day that they were produced. This kept us from becoming confused as to when the bags were filled, and therefore uncertain as to whether they were still good after a point. It also helped us keep certain sections of the freezer open for bags pumped at a particular time.
Therefore, in the area where we keep the breast milk bags waiting to be used, I also put a permanent marker to make dating the bags quick and easy no matter who is doing it.
Organizing the Freezer
Even with our milk storage bags nicely dated, and having taken some of the trouble of keeping our milk supply organized in our freezer, we still had storage space issues. Our breast milk was quickly overtaking all other items in our freezer and was making the search for certain items a regular event.
Having to dig through, over, and around stacks of frozen breast milk in the search for regular food was becoming time consuming and frustrating. And we were constantly battling avalanches of cascading frozen milk bags in the process. Therefore, we took the time to reorganize our freezer, moving all frozen breast milk to one area, and eventually (as our stock grew) moving our frozen foods for adult consumption to the front of the freezer where they were more easily accessible.
Rotating Stock
It took some time (multiple months) to get to the point where we were ready to start consuming our frozen breast milk supply. And even with our efforts at freezer organization, earlier pumped milk was getting mixed in with more recently dated milk. Therefore, before we began consumption, we again had to take a little time and reorganize our supply, moving older pumped milk forward to be consumed first. This helped us maximize our stocked supply and minimize waste by suddenly stumbling across bags that were too old to use.
