Rules of storing breast milk

[blankfornames]

I expressed for the first time this morning. I was amazed to get over 3 ozs in about 15 mins from one breast. My question is..if I express 3 ozs and leave the bottle in room temp, can i add another 2 ozs to the same bottle 4 hrs later if first batch hasnt been refrigerated?

Still confused about storing the milk!

The guidelines for how long expressed milk can be kept at room temperature seem to vary (I've seen 4 to 8 hours quoted), but the concern would be that if the first lot of milk has already been out for 4 hours, it's getting towards the limit before it should be used, so you're limiting the life span of both batches if you mix them together.

If you can, it would be better to refrigerate the first batch and add the second batch to this. It's fine to do this if they were expressed on the same day.

Definitely don't mix the different batches.

Also a few other things I remember about Expressing "rules":

Do not store the milk in the door of the fridge, always towards the back of the fridge

Don't freak out if you go back to the milk you expressed a few hours ago and find it has 'split' or looks off, with a grey, watery substance on the top. This is perfectly normal so don't throw it out. Gently shake the bottle to remix it. Essentially what will have happened it the fore milk and hind milk has separated.

And you know that stupid phrase "there's no point crying over spilt milk"? It's a load of bollocks. You will feel like sobbing your heart out if you ever have the misfortune of knocking over a bottle of milk you have spent ages pumping......

It's fine to mix batches if you store it in the fridge.

The Kelly mom website has some really comprehensive advice on this. It suggests you should chill the milk before combining. So you are adding chilled milk to chilled milk.

NHS website has some guidelines

www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/expressing-storing-breast-milk.aspx#close

HTH

"Foremilk" is a quite out-of-date term. The milk separates, like unhomogenized cow's milk.

You can combine the two batches at room temperature, but you need to treat it all as if it had the same age as the oldest batch. Six hours at room temperature is fine - but I wouldn't do that if the room is 30C.

Ok thanks ladies. Great advice. Thanks also for link.