Frozen breast milk & travelling

[BettyStogs]

Can anyone tell me about how soon you should use defrosted BM?

DS is 3 months old and EBF. I am due to go on a weekend away when he will be 5 months old, so have started expressing and freezing so DH can feed him when I am away. Where I am going is at the other end of the country to us, so the plan is for all 3 of us to drive part of the way on the Friday, then I will travel the rest of the way on the Saturday morning, returning Sunday afternoon while DH & DS stay with MIL who is (conveniently) located en route.

So I will be packing the frozen BM in cool bags with ice blocks, however if it does defrost on the 5-6 hour journey on the Friday, can it be safely stored in the fridge when we arrive & used on the Saturday & Sunday? I have also considered that DH might have to use some formula over the weekend if the BM runs out, so would it be easier to just formula feed for a couple of days? Thanks for any advice!

i think advice is defrost overnight in a fridge and once defrosted use within 24 hours (though i am prepared to be corrected)

in cool bags with ice-blocks etc id imagine the milk in the middle will still be pretty frozen.

you could also express as much as possible during the few days before...
all milk expressed (but not frozen) will if kept chilled be ok for 3-5 days....

so could have tuesdays milk on fri, wed on sat, and thur on sunday.
hopefully the freshmilk and defrosting milk should see baby through those few days

i have used my breast milk, (which i dont always refridgerate immediately) 4 days after expressing with no ill effects

i know in 1 book somewhere i read you can keep breast milk in the fridge for 10 days

Thanks nannyl, I hadn't even thought of taking chilled as well as frozen breast milk. I will definitely try expressing extra for the few days beforehand.

Who'd have thought a weekend away would need so much forward planning? How my life has changed!

Pack it up really well and it's unlikely to defrost anyway, at least not enough to be a problem. If it's packed really well it will be ok until the Sunday. "Normally" defrosted milk needs to be used within 12-24 of defrosting but this will be half frozen so should be fine.

4-5 days is really the max to keep fresh for (although some milk keeps longer. It varies from mum to mum) but as nanny says you can take the fresh milk from a couple of days before which would cover over the Sunday.

Sorry, it took ages to post that!

Thanks organic, think I should be able to produce enough between now & February to last the weekend!