When a breastfeeding mommy does not have excess expressed frozen breast milk, and is then called away on a week long business trip, what is a mommy to do?
Kellymom.com and La Leche League International have concise guidelines on the handling of expressed breastmilk so I shan't repeat those here.
One. Pump like crazy to build up stock.
Two. Store in one ounce sticks (like ice popsicles) to facilitate defrosting. I use mumsfairy.com Sensible Line milk trays to freeze. (product disclaimer: Mumsfairy did not pay me to endorse their product)
Three. Date all milk bags. In my front opening freezer, I store milk in drawer compartments and do FIFO like the below diagram.
Storing in the way I describe allows me to move the stock further in. Each freezer has his own peculiarities…. the general principle is to rotate such that you are able to put in the latest milk and take out the earliest milk without freezing your hand off.
Or if you have built up enough credit with the boss and business stakeholders, offer to teleconference, video conference, delay or shorten the duration of the business trip. Anything to not go away at all (ideal! but not possible lest the working mom is displaced from her job…) or shorten the duration. A 2 month delay to when baby is after 6 months old, means baby is taking in some solids, hence not fully dependent on mommy’s milk for nutrition.
Jia you, working breastfeeding mommies!
Thanks for this! I have a slightly different system.. I store all the frozen milk in flat milk bags in boxes. Each box can store about 8 bags - about 2 days worth of milk. I always keep one box accessible and for the rest I label the box and squeeze them into whatever nooks I can find in the freezer. When I need frozen milk, I just take out the "oldest" box... It's not a precise system but I don't care.. so long I know I'm roughly on FIFO principles.. :P
ReplyDeleteGreat that you have a system that works for you!
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