Thawed Milk - What can I get away with?

Toni79 · December 2012

I am just starting to tap into my freezer stash. Today was the first day I left thawed milk for LO. I just spoke to DH and she took it just fine.

HOWEVER . . . I always leave 4 bottles. Some days she takes 3 and other days she taked all 4. Today she only took 3. So I have a bottle left over. I know thawed milk is only good for 24 hours after thawing. It was thawed in the fridge over night. I'm wondering if it would be safe if this was the first bottle she gets tomorrow. (All her other bottles tomorrow will be today's milk).

OR

I'm actually .5 oz short on fresh milk (pumped today). So maybe I can take .5 of the thawed milk and mix it with fresh for tomorrow'f first bottle.

WWYD? What have you gotten away with with thawed milk?

TIA

lil_jen051708 · December 2012

It would probably be ok for tomorrows first bottle. I would smell it in the morning just to be sure. You will know if it's bad.

patrickandkim · December 2012

I go 24hrs from when it was completely dethawed. I put my bags in the fridge overnight. Consequently, they are not completely dethwed until morning. So, I use the AM as the 24hr mark and will use a left over bottle for the first AM feed the next day if needed.

cltk12 · December 2012

I toss it, but will be interested in what others say.

If I send frozen to dc, I do 2 bottles frozen and 1 fresh in case ds doesn't take his 3rd bottle that day so I don't have to waste any.

Cheerio B · December 2012

I try really hard to stick to the 24 hours. Much more than that and I throw it away to be safe. You can try doing a sniff/taste test tomorrow if you really want to use it. I try to always make sure that the frozen bottle is used first at daycare because I am super paranoid about it.

Toni79 · December 2012

Thanks ladies! I've been really lucky that I haven't had to leave any thawed milk so far. I've been back to work almost a month and have always been able to leave fresh milk. I just leave Friday's milk in the fridge over the weekend and leave it for Monday. But with the long holiday weekend, I froze my milk from Friday. So I had to leave frozen today. I have quite the stash (100+ oz), so I need to be better about leaving thawed milk on Mondays and freezing Fridays. Just so I cycle through my stash. I have a lot still to learn and figure out what's going to work for us!

Ladiebug710 · December 2012

I thaw my milk in the fridge overnight, so in the morning it is still slushy. I dont start the clock until it is completely thawed and that buys me a little more wiggle room on the 24 hr rule.

MichelleInNOLA · December 2012

I started out being a little crazy with the 24 hour rule, but now I really just go by the sniff test. If it starts to smell weird or different in any way, I toss it. Obviously I'm not gonna leave it in the fridge forever, I'd try to make the longest defrosted bottle the first to be given, but I'd go to 36 or even 48 hours as long as it smelled normal. Never had DS act any different whether he had fresh, frozen, recently thawed, thawed over a day ago, etc., so it didn't seem to bother him any!