Breastmilk freezing, storage and thawing

[@llli*mrsdavis79]

First, I would like to say how amazing breastfeeding is. I am still just in awe of this whole process and my boy is almost 9 weeks!!

I go back to work in about 3-4 weeks and I am wanting to make sure I have the basics down regarding pumping, storing, freezing and thawing.

First, I have about 10 ounces of colostrum from when he was in the NICU (is this even good anymore?). There are several different bottles of it, can they be combined once thawed?

Next, can frozen milk be combined once thawed? And can it be refrigerated after thawing? I will probably mostly pump for the very next day, but in the event I have to dip into the frozen stash, how do I prepare it for the nanny?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. At this point, he has only had about 4 bottles...and that was just to see if he was okay with them.

[@llli*mommy2lilah]

Congratulations on your baby boy!

You can combine frozen milk. Just keep it refrigerated and use it within 24 hours of thawing.

[@llli*darwinthesun]

Yeah, you can combine frozen milk just go by the oldest date for using. I don't usually combine milk unless it is within a few days of another session (usually the same days though).

Milk is good for 6 months if it is frozen, so as long as the colostrum has been frozen the whole time it is fine to use. If it were me...and I have nothing to back this up with other than intuition...I wouldn't combine the colostrum to give all at once. I would give one ounce (or whatever small amount you have) then breastfeed. That way, you can space out the antibody boost. I would maybe even do it every other day just to make it nice and spaced.

[@llli*lllmeg]

Here are some quick tip sheets for storing milk, handling milk and feeding baby when mom returns to work.

Bottlefeeding the breastfed baby AND safe milk handling: http://www.llli.org/docs/00000000000...fyour_milk.pdf

and milk storage: http://www.llli.org/docs/00000000000...toringmilk.pdf