DS day out with grandma- pleeease help with EBM transport advice!

[Cosmo89]

Hi!
Grandma is taking DS tomorrow afternoon- its our first time apart- he's 7 wks- but I'm soooooo in need of a break. I therefore don't want to mess up feeding issues and cause Grandma to return with DS way before I'm ready (grandma is also really looking forward to the outing).
I'm guessing he needs about 5-6oz for one feed?
I have about 6oz in the freezer. But I've read that once defrosted you need to use it straight away.
It's awkward but do I send grandma off with the frozen packets and a sterilised bottle - if he's taken at about 12 hell have just had a feed and should be good for c. 3ish hours. The packets should defrost in a cooler bag over that time (though I don't think we have an ice block to go in it) and if not she can get a bowl of water in a cafe to help the process, transferring it all into the bottle once thawed. Is this over complicated, unsafe madness? Is there a better way of doing it? I could try expressing 6oz before tomorrow but that's going to be tough to do before 12....

Personally I would defrost in the fridge tonight, make up the sterilized bottle and hand it to grandma with DS tomorrow. I'm not sure of the guidelines for how long EBM can be out of the fridge but I happily defrost overnight and take out and about for a few hours with no issues. Give her the made up bottle in a little cool bag if you prefer. Otherwise it may be a mission to wait for it defrost on the go, get it into the bottle etc etc when your DS is ready for a feed. Big trouble if you spill any on the go or only have one hand free to decant it etc etc!!

I also have a very small thermos and a tall tupperware pot so that if grandma is in the park not a cafe, it takes just a couple of minutes to warm up the milk, easy peasy. If you don't have those to hand it's not the end of the world, but worth having to hand for future babysitting - it's proved useful to us on the couple of instances DD has been away from me.

Personally 5-6 ounzes sounds a lot to me - a 5 oz feed for my DD (17 weeks) would be a big feed, but it is of course a personal thing!

Enjoy your well earned day off

A couple of links which might help:

Kellymom milk calculator - you may not need as much as 6oz.

BFN milk storage guidelines - suggests that if you defrost in the fridge, then it keeps up to 12 hours (although I'd put something cold in the cooler bag to keep it that way) rather than immediately if defrosted at room temperature.

Hope it all goes smoothly and you have a nice break.