How do you store breast milk? How much do you require per day or week? How do you defrost? How do you warm? I am interested in seeing if there are easier ways to be doing this.

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I typically like to have enough for the week. I store it frozen in my freezer (would have to get a chest one if I had multiple kids on breast milk though, my freezer is pretty small anyways). I defrost either in the fridge or under warm water. I don't warm it unless a child absolutely refuses it cold. So far only one has. In that case I warmed it on the stove top. It's not too bad but my group is always small. There may be ways others do it that work better with a larger group!

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I require parents to bring one week's supply at a time. I keep it in the freezer in the storage bags the parent brings it in.
When it's time to defrost it, I place the bag in another plastic bag (just in case of leakage) and then I place the bag(s) in a bowl or container of warm water.

It only takes a short while to defrost completely. Once it's completely thawed, I change out the water and submerse the bag(s) again to warm the milk.

Once it's warm, I pour the contents into baby's bottle and feed.

Most the babies I've had were pretty scheduled eaters so it was easy to pre-plan when to begin thawing.

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I required all parents to bring Breast and formula ready to feed.I did keep a days worth frozen.I had each bottle at least 4 ounces.I always warmed bottles in a small crockpot of water .The crockpot worked great.

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I do the same as Blackcat31.

BUT... back in the day I was trained to heat it using a crock pot for speed and efficiency. Since then was told that it destroyed the breast milk to "overheat" it like that. We should use body temp to slightly warm?

Is that the truth or assumption? Vitamins in our food get cooked and..... well, you get the gist...

Thoughts?

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I have my nursing mom's "school" me on how to do it and all of them have said "warm" as in slightly warmer than room temp or as close to natural body temp as possible but NOT hot and NOT boiling. For the same reasons you were told... it destroys the good stuff to over heat or heat too fast.

I guess I've personally never read up on the subject and just let my nursing mom's tell me how they want me to do it.

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I nursed all 3 of mine, but never really read up on it, either. Guess it is time for some actual research... Now I wonder what we are doing to our own food, too.

Eh, we need to learn something every day don't we??

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I think it depends on baby as well. I've had babies who didn't like breastmilk that had been frozen and then thawed, I forgot the term for this, it distorts taste. I've had babies like it hot, others that like it lukewarm.
You might have to play with temp for a while.
I use a container of water, that I microwave, after the water is out of the microwave, I place the storage bag inside of a Ziploc into the water, while it's sitting, I squeeze the bag so I don't have cold or hot spots. I find with frozen bags, this is quicker, have to be careful with refrigerated because it will warm up quicker, within 30 secs to a minute.
As much as I try to have at least a couple days supply, some people are so stingy, like I would sell it for gold or something , now I'm making a policy to have more on hand. I always store it in ziplocs so it doesn't leak all over my fridge, had that happen and it's not pleasant.

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Thank you everyone! I have a one day extra suply for part timers and an extra week suply if full time. Right now I have a part time baby. I put each frozen individual storage bag together in one large ziplock bag overnight in my fridge to start to defrost. They are slushy consistency at this point. I then take out what i need before each feeding time and defrost about 2 bags at a time (because there is only 2 or 3 ounces in each) in another bag in warm tap water in a bowl. This has always worked before for all my other babies. This baby prefers his milk much more hot. After sipping on the bottle for a minute or so he rejects and screams. I have found rewarming it helps. Not sure why it is going cold so fast or if he is just really particular. I dont think rewarming it is good though. I also dont want to waste any so I make 4 to 6 ounces at first and if he occasionally needs more I have to warm more which can take a while. He doesn't like to wait.

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If its thawed I store it measured out in bottles in the refrigerator and heat it in a bottle warmer. If its frozen I place a clean bowl in the bottom of the kitchen sink, place the bag of frozen milk in the bowl, and run warm water over it until it thaws. The running water overflows the bowl and drains down the sink. It is typically thawed and warm enough to feed within 3 or 4 minutes.

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All my babies are BF. I require they bring it in bottles ready to be warmed each day. Both my current BFing moms bring about 3 bottles a day at 4oz each.

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I just tried to put one 3 ounce warmed bag into a bottle and feed while the other stays in the warm water. I then refilled and it seemed to work.

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This is my new requirement. But I would require one extra bottle incase of the unknown (they are late picking up)


I did the crockpot heating, there is no shut off or timer or temp control and the bottle over heated. The milk yellowed, the fats formed a solid, making the bottle no good.

I bowl thawed the milk for the morning bottle (room thawed the rest) then used a bottle warmer that was bm and ff friendly.

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