storing milk

SethandSara

How long can you refrigerate breast milk? Also can I combine milk that I pump on different days?  What do you put your milk in when you freeze it? TIA

bbygrl802

Breast milk can be refrigerated for two days it can stay in the freezer for two months and if you have a deep feezer (stand alone freezer) 6 months. They dont suggest you combine milk from different days. If you plan to use the milk right away just store it in the fridge in a container but if not place it in a bag and put it in the freezer.  I use my mommy's milk bags I purchased at walmart/target in the baby section.  you should always put the milk in the fridge first then freezer.  squeeze all the air out the bags for freshness.  I hope this helps.

sara_smile

https://www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/milkstorage.html

I go by these storage guidelines.

The My Mommy's Milk freezer bags are made by Lansinoh. I use them mostly because they got good recs from Baby Bargains and because they are craploads cheaper than the Medela ones.

MAtoNC

I go by the kellymom guidelines, too.

From the research I've done, it is perfectly fine to combine milk from two different days. However, if you do so--make sure they are the same temp (e.g. refridgerated) and that you mark the combined bottle with the date of the oldest contributing bottle.

There are some guidelines that state you can combine milk of different temp if you just make sure that there is MORE of the lower temp bottle (if that makes sense). I tend to be a little more conservative, though--and I at least make sure they are the same temp.

As far as how long to be able to store in the fridge. I personally store longer than 2 days, and the guidelines are all over the place. Some say 3 - 5, some say 4 - 6, and others say up to 8 days. The longest I've gone is 3 days (pump on Friday, bottle for daycare on Monday)--but I would be comfortable going longer as long as the milk still smelled fresh to me.