Breastfeeding and expressing - sterilising/storage question

[chelle85]

I gave birth to our little boy 5 days ago and plan to try and breastfeed to at least 6mth old. However there will be times when he needs to take a bottle and I would rather if this were expressed milk.

There seems to be a lit of conflicting advice on when to introduce a bottle but I have an appt on 15th Sep which will take me away for at least 3-4 hours so I want to have him bottle ready for this.

My milk has come in and I am currently using a collection shell on the breast that I am not feeding from and collecting around 2oz in the day. I plan to start saving this and freezing to build up a little stash to delay expressing.

So my questions are:

1. How often do I need to sterilise collection shell? After each feed/every 6 hours/once a day?

1. Do I store the collected milk in the fridge and just pour in the extra to top up after each feed? Or does milk need to be left out to be mixed at same temperature?

1. What amount is best to store in for freezing? Will 2oz be ok?

Sterilise after each use (some people may disagree..). I put all the milk in the fridge and combine once cooled.

Sterilise after each collection. Milk definitely to be stored in the fridge rather than room temp. I generally combined all bits of milk for a day and froze in one lot. It doesn't matter how big or small you freeze the batches but once defrosted you can't refreeze and needs to be used in 24hours so better to freeze in slightly smaller than bigger amounts.