Breastmilk freezing advice

[Naomip88]

I've been managing to express pretty good amounts of milk so I want to take advantage and freeze some for back up. At the moment I've been expressing 3 or 4 times a day ( as well as bfeeding but dd has latch issues so feeds can take a long time and she gets a bit fractious during feeds and we both generally prefer giving ebm in a bottle) I can express anywhere between 3 - 5 ounces in one session but what I want to know is can you combine milk from different pumping sessions ( but on the same day) in one freezer bag if I put the milk straight in the fridge after I've pumped ? So if I pumped in the morning could I put that in the fridge and then add the afternoons milk to it and then freeze it?

Great thanks! Did you mean to pun with 'expressly says it' :-)

I've done this. In fact I've pumped one morning and then again the next morning and combined the two to freeze. The amount I can express varies massively so I don't want to freeze just 2oz, so often save it and add to the next day when no doubt I can get a good 6oz off which means I have too much

I did. I also used to mix frozen milk from different days and mixed milk from two days as I couldn't generally pump a whole feed. The milk is only ever a "fresh" as the oldest milk though and get milk cold before you mix it.

Yes you can. Another tip is to freeze small amounts, 1-2 oz. If you lie the bags flat, they defrost almost instantly in warm water because they're so thin, and it leads to less wastage. As you can defrost it so quickly it means you can defrost to baby's appetite, instead of defrosting, say, 6 or 7 oz and baby not wanting the last oz.