Breastfeeding

Thawed breastmilk

Hey ladies!! So I've been EP for right at 6 months and storing about 12 ounces of extra milk a day in our deep freezer. My goal was to be able to start backing off pumping soon and having enough milk in the freezer to last LO until one year old...which we are close to having. I started thawing out the oldest milk in the fridge the other day to rotate our stockpile and the thawed milk has an odd taste and smell. Not spoiled, but not like fresh milk. I went on kellymom and and the "soapy" description they use sums it up well. Apparently it is still safe for baby but LO may reject it due to the odd taste. One of the suggestions is to mix the thawed milk with fresh milk, which I have been doing and LO drinks it. My problem is that I don't plan to have fresh milk to mix in for that much longer. I'm hoping to get LO accustomed to the change in taste, but do any of you ladies know any tricks to help besides mixing with fresh milk?

Re: Thawed breastmilk

  • Not specifically but I wonder if you can do a mix taper since your LO currently accepts it. Like gradually go from a 50/50 mixture (or whatever ratio you're doing now) to 60/40 to 70/30 until you're at 100% frozen. Maybe the slow acclimation to the taste will work?
  • So I have the same problem my my milk is okay in the fridge but once frozen it goes rancid. I researched also, it's called excess lipase. You can scald your breastmilk. That works wonders for me. I scald whatever is going to be frozen and it has worked awesome!
  • Loading the player...
  • I did read a little about scalding. I was planning on trying that with the new milk I pump, but can you scald already frozen milk or is it only pre-freeze?

    I have a feeling tapering will prob be the only thing I can do with the already frozen milk. It's a shame, because there is so much of it that we had to buy a new chest freezer just to store it all. At least it's just a weird taste and not soured.
  • marijaa333marijaa333 member
    edited January 2016
    Can you not mix it with fruits and veggies after six months? (Just don't mix it with honey--which is the one food off limits for kids under 1--or with (too much) sugar, for obvious reasons.)

    In other words, instead of having half a sweet potato followed by a bottle of BM, which is a typical lunch around here when I'm at work, perhaps you can mix the potato mash with the milk and feed that?
  • Are you on Facebook? Post the question about scalding to la leche league and they will message you back.
  • Have you tried just feeding it to LO? My frozen milk smells slightly soapy and LO never had a problem taking it. Some babies are picker than others though.
  • LLL responded. The milk can only be scalded prior to freezing, it won't do anything about the soapy taste after thawing. Kinda figured that. Looks like we'll just have to try tapering and hope it works. 50-50 is working so far.

    I did try giving it to her straight thawed. She took it once and kinda had a wtf look on her face. Since then, she doesn't want it unless it's diluted with fresh milk. We'll see how accommodating she's gonna be lol.
Sign In or Register to comment.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards
"
"