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Infant feeding

freezing breastmilk in ice-cube trays

18 replies

Ruthiebaby · 12/06/2005 15:39

Hi girls. My ds is 4-months old now and I'm getting myself organised for weaning next month. He's exclusively breast-fed so when I start him on baby rice I want to use breastmilk.
My HV told me to freeze my breastmilk in ice-cube trays and simply pop a cube or two out each day when required. Sounds, good but I have a few questions on this and I'm hoping somebody can help.

  1. When I put the milk in the sterilised ice-cube trays do I cover it with something ? Is it ok to cover it with clingfilm ? Does this not affect it ?

  2. How long will it keep for ? I'm planning on expressing at the start of each week.
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beansprout · 12/06/2005 15:42

Haven't done this, I always used the Advent cups with the screw on lids. You are likely to be defrosting a full feed so I found the cups much easier. Ice cube trays are great for pureed food in a few weeks time. A full feed is likely to be quite a few cubes!

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Lonelymum · 12/06/2005 15:49

NOt if you are using the milk to mix with baby rice beansprout - I think that is what you mean isn't it Ruthiebaby? A couple of cubes of milk would be about right to mix with baby rice in the early days.

I always had a porblem with freezing things in ice cube trays: they are very hard to get out. I did use plastic trays though - perhaps metal ones would be better? I found I had to chip away at the cube to dislodge it, and eventually, anything frozen in the trays would come out with bits of blue plastic lodged in them which I then had to pick out - not exactly hygenic!

I wouldn't worry about covering the tray though - as long as you don't stack things on top of it. The cold condition of the freezer should keep the cubes sterile.

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evansmummy · 12/06/2005 17:33

I used one of those rubery bendy ice cube trays to do ebm and purees, and they come out a treat! I covered mine with clingfilm, but maybe you don't need to. Very practical though, do it!

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Ruthiebaby · 12/06/2005 17:35

Hi lonelymum - yes I mean to use the milk to mix with babyrice for weaning.
I think I'll experiment first with the ice-cube trays - I know how hard it is to get water ice cubes out in one whole cube...I never thought about that with breastmilk. If it's difficult I think I'll probably try expressing in the mornings and using that to mix...just it seems like such a lot of work for a few teaspoons of milk if you know what I mean.

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Ruthiebaby · 12/06/2005 17:36

evansmummy - how many cubes do you defrost of purees for a feed ?

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Feffi · 12/06/2005 17:56

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

poppy101 · 12/06/2005 17:56

You can actually buy breast milk tray with a lid on, bit like ice cube tray with a lid, I think NCT might do them. Have seen on line recently ?? or PHP not quite sure, can't remember.

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mears · 12/06/2005 18:18

I hand expressed milk as I needed it for mixing with food for weaning. If you wait till 6 months you don't need to bother with baby rice at all!

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Ameriscot2005 · 12/06/2005 18:35

I stored EBM in Playtex bottle liners.

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pootlepod · 12/06/2005 18:36

I froze EBM in ribber ice cube trays. To 'sterilise' I poured boiled water over them but didn't bother after the first few occasions.

It is worth getting a rubber tray, as popping the food out is much easier. What I did, was to freeze a tray load (perhaps 2 types of veg purees overnight, then remove the whole lot and place in a named freezer bag, then do another lot, that way you only need 1 tray.

Then you start with 1 cube, but when you need about 4 for a meal it's worth getting some small pots.

I never covered any of the trays! I would like to say I was careful about where I out it but only because I hated spilling any breastmilk!!!

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beansprout · 12/06/2005 19:01

Fair point. I have always used expressed milk from the fridge for mixing, tbh, I hadn't thought of freezing it! Ds want to eat anything until nearly 7m, so we went straight to fruit 'n' veg. Only need ebm for morning porridge.

Anyway, best of luck!

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evansmummy · 13/06/2005 12:20

I use one cube puree with one cube ebm at the moment; ds hated baby rice so we're onto purees but thought i'd mix with a bit of milk to start with; it's not going superbly well, but hope your's will be better!

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clary · 13/06/2005 12:33

oh please don't bother to sterilise the ice-cube trays!
by 5-6mo yr baby cd be crawling anyway (my ds2 was) and therefore puttign anything and everythign in his mounth.
Agree re suggestion of rubber ice-cube trays; otherwise just run the back of the tray under a hot tap to get the cubes out.
Frozen ebm keeps for 3mo iirc. no need to cover trays either.

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clary · 13/06/2005 12:34

though yes like mears i just hand expressed what i needed to mix with purees.

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Laura032004 · 14/06/2005 12:05

I've got an icecube tray which has a cover with it. It's from Tupperware - have they ceased trading now?

Also, I find that bm comes out of them easier than ice cubes or purees, don't know if this is something to do with the fat content of this milk?

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Donbean · 14/06/2005 12:42

Ikea is where i got my rubber trays from.
Didnt cover them but popped them into a clean plastic freezer bag as soon as they were frozen and poured boiling water over tray to clean as far as possible.
I could never express much so some times i left it in the bag and just froze that.
To add, i also dedicated one shelf in the freezer for EBM and didnt put any thing else on it.
Also i found that i used it all very quickly and so it was never in there for more than a week or 10 days.
Not sure how long you can store it for, sorry.
HTH.

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starlover · 14/06/2005 12:45

i got rubber ones from sainsburys for 99p each

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hana · 14/06/2005 12:45

I have been hand expressing for dd2's babyrice - well twice now, and I'm managing to get enough for the goop so far. Had forgotten all about weaning and the mess and the organisation of it all though!! Must start expressing again for the purees....

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