What does your "system" look like?

[crunchymom2b]

I'm curious to see what everyones' pumping system or set up is like. I'm pumping with a Symphony and getting about 48oz per day. Not sure exactly how much LO is eating. I pump into the 5oz Medela bottles, and aim to keep 6 bottles of fresh milk in the fridge at all times, but no less than 3-4 bottles minimum. each bottle is between 3oz and 5oz. Everything else gets frozen. As a guess, I'd say 2-3 sessions worth of milk goes into the fridge while the rest gets frozen each day. I freeze 25-50oz every 1-2 days. I don't need to start using the frozen milk until December, as I have about 50-100oz that isn't in the deeper freezer and will go bad otherwise. I have no clue how to rotate through frozen milk while still using fresh at the same time!

So what does your system look like? If you use fresh and frozen how do you rotate through? How do you decide what gets frozen and what gets eaten?Do you feed baby whatever you pumped at the prior session? Or freezer everything and rotate through the oldest? Thanks!!

[dericasmom]

Thanks for this post - I have the same question! Baby D is 10 weeks and I have stored about 150 oz in the upright freezer in our garage, I'm not sure if it qualifies as a "deep" freezer, but we don't open it more than once or twice a day. I'm planning on keeping my frozen milk not more than six months before thawing and feeding it but I don't have a plan for how to work with the fresh and frozen milk in an organized way. Would love some tips!

[IowaGold]

I gave up trying to rotate my frozen stash as it was a losing battle! So now I only feed DD fresh milk. It can be up to a few days old, depending on how much she ate the day before and when we need bottles again (example: She didn't eat much at daycare on Friday so I still have two bottles left of milk I pumped Thursday, plus she'll have a couple of bottles of Saturday's milk and a couple of bottles of Sunday's milk-all of Friday's milk went in the freezer).

I store my freezer milk in an upright freezer in the garage. It gets cold enough that it was "qualified" by the milk bank I sometimes donate to, so I guess it qualifies as a deep freeze. I usually store milk in 4-6 ounce bags (frozen flat) then I put the frozen bags into gallon ziploc bags. Each ziploc will hold 50-60 ounces. I can then put the date range on the ziploc. When I was trying to feed frozen milk in addition to fresh, I would bring one ziploc at a time into the house and leave it in the fridge freezer.

[katydid6952]

I started rotating out my stash about 2 months ago. I give my daughter 3 bottles of frozen and the rest is fresh each day. I sort everything out every night. I usually make about 4-5 fresh bottles and freeze the rest. This way, she has 1 fresh bottle in the morning, 3 frozen bottles while at daycare then 1 fresh bottle at daycare and 1-2 fresh bottles at night.

I just knew I didn't want my daughter to be drinking old frozen breastmilk and decided I should start rotating it out. We're currently using frozen breastmilk from the beginning of august and I have a chest freezer full.

[Meganeliz9]

I've been wondering about this too. I read that it's better to give your child the fresh milk because it will have antibodies for the viruses that are going around NOW as oppposed to what you might have been exposed to 3 months ago. But, I don't want to keep frozen milk longer than 3 months since we only have the freezer that's w/ the fridge. I was thinking I would start freezing what i pump on Fridays, give baby frozen milk (from 2 months ago) on Monday and then Tues. will be whatever I pump on Monday. That way it will only be one day of the frozen stuff and eveything else will be fresh. I give him 3-3oz bottles for daycare and then nurse the rest of the time.

[Nerissa]

Starting the week after Thanksgiving, as it will be my first full week back to work. I will start using frozen milk for Monday bottles. right now I am pumping enough extra at work that everything on Thursday and Friday will go right into the freezer and the weekend pumpings will go in the freezer.

She takes 3 3oz bottles while I am at work and I nurse the rest of the time.

If this time around is like the last time, my supply dips drastically around 6 or 7 months so I will go throught the freezer stash very quickly then. Since everything is in the deep freeze I am not to worried about using it up before 6 moths. The one day a week will be just enough.

[LillyLee]

I pump about 30oz per day. LO eats about 18. I pump into the small medela bottles and have one or two large medela bottles that I combine milk into in the fridge to stockpile for feeds unless she's ready for a feed right then and she gets fresh pumped. If the large bottle is full then I will freeze 4 oz into a lansinoh bag. I conveniently get 4 oz each time so its an easy measurement into the bag. I haven't had to use my freezer stash yet. Will probably need to figure something out for daycare in a few weeks. Like refrigerating the amount of bottles she will need and putting the leakproof caps on them.

I know they say feed your baby not your freezer but I really don't want to have to start using my stash this early. I wanted to save it for when I decided to stop pumping and then give only breastmilk until it ran out and hopefully be feeding solids at that point.

[theoriginalpumpkin]

This is my third lactation, but my first where I am exclusively pumping. It's not what I planned given the ease of my first two, but circumstances are a tad different. This time, instead of focusing on one baby, I have triplets who were born premature. I'm lucky enough to make enough milk for three babies and then some but was not lucky enough to transition preemies to breast (still working on it).

The routine is that I started pumping every 2 hours in the hospital and worked out to a routine that started every 3 hours: pump, feed, diaper, put them to bed, try to nap LOL. Eventually this has stretched into trying to preserve the every 3 hours but stretching a 4 hr section in at night. I pump anywhere from 16-18 oz a pumping. I reuse my pump equipment throughout the day and clean 1-2 times a day.

ETA: babies eat the milk at room temp unless at daycare