Practicalities of using expressed breast milk

[1Catherine1]

I have googled this but often find mumsnet to be a more reliable resource anyway so I'll ask here.

My LO is 1 week and 4 days old and I have been expressing and feeding straight from the breast. I worry about the milk being in the best form when she drinks it from the bottle so I did a little research and read that any milk left over in a bottle can be used for the next feed only but then must be discarded as germs from the baby's mouth gets into the bottle. Her feeding patterns can be quite erratic and sometimes she has big feeds and sometimes small ones so I never really know how much milk she needs.

This evening I went for a lie down leaving my OH with instructions on how to feed her and informing him that the big bottle in the fridge is used only to store milk and if she needs any out of there he was to transfer it to a smaller bottle before feeding. Unfortunately it seems I gave him too much info at once and the bit about not feeding out of the big bottle was missed and I woke to find she was being fed out of it.

There are now 4 oz left in the bottle which can be a big feed for her or 2 small ones.

I'm left wondering 2 things that I would like some help on:

1. Is it safe for me to put breast milk that has been warmed up back in the fridge and then warm it up again later for her early morning feed? (which is usually a big one)
2. Would it really be so unhygienic to use the bottle again for 2 feeds?

Not really happy about having to throw away breast milk but of course it is preferable to exposing my daughter to any germs which I shouldn't.

As a new mum I'm really clueless about this sort of thing and at the moment I don't know where over-obsession starts and what is actually normal to obsess about. Any information would be appreciated and I'm happy to be told I'm just being overly cautious if that is the case.

TIA

well breastmilk has anti-bacterial properties, so tbh i really wouldn't worry too much about it!

have you had problems feeding direct from the breast?

no, she's quite good feeding from the breast - I only express for a rest at nights so OH can help.

ahh ok, sorry i took your post to mean that you were only feeding expressed breastmilk!

so yeah, i woulkd re-use all the milk you have. but that's only my opinion, others may well differ

I would reuse it once, but not more than that. I believe that is the advice

How many bottles a day do you give, just one?

1Catherine1 congratulations on your daughter! My son is now 1 week old.

Interesting to hear about expressing for DH to feed. I'm thinking about it too, but more selfishly because bf is soo painful!

I was worried about DS being able to do both. Your DD is doing well with it then?

Congratulations Petalouda. Yes, she swaps between them quite easily after the initial confusion had passed.

She has 1 to 2 bottles a day depending on what I'm doing. One at night and sometimes one in the day if I go out as I'm still not comfortable bf in public as my other breast (the one I'm not bf from at the time) leaks too much and soaks the breast pad, my bra and my top.

Thank you Penguin I think that's what I'll do. I haven't used it yet as I wasn't sure but I'll just throw away what she doesn't eat this time.

KellyMom's advice is that you can reheat a maximum of twice with freshly expressed milk (not frozen as this loses a lot of it's antibacterial storage properties).

Expressing can itself lead to issues early on as it affects your supply and pumping isn't as effective as a baby. It's not just the bottles. I did it, but then I had to as DD was in SCBU and was then bottlefed and then needed top-ups before getting to ebf. We did struggle with latch confusion and supply issues.