Advice needed from anyone who is a pro at expressing through the day to build up a bottle...

[Floppytulip]

I haven't been away from DD (4 months) yet and I'm getting itchy feet to have just an hour or two on my own!

I've been expressing a little milk an hour after each feed to build up enough to leave DH with a bottle, and managed to get 7oz by the end of yesterday, the only thing is...

What do you do with the milk all day? I put mine in a bottle in the fridge and then added the milk 2oz by 2oz until the end of the day.

Then as an experiment I fed her that bottle at bedtime to see if she'd take it, but she was making disgusted faces and I tried it and it tasted sour- I wonder if this is because I had been adding warm milk to cold milk in the fridge....

Also, do you leave your milk to cool before fridge/freezering it?

Any tips/tricks gratefully received! Thanks

Also, she is fine with bottles generally, I've expressed before feeds before and given it to her straightaway to get her familiar with bottles...

I express straight into milk storage bags and put these in the fridge after each expressing session then at the end of the night put them all together into 1 bottle then they are all fridge temperature.

Are you heating the bottle up when you take it out of the fridge to give her so it is the same temp as when she breastfeeds? I add to milk in the fridge that shouldnt be a prob as long as you use the time of the first expressing in the bottle as your use by date/time.

Thanks Mikafan, that's a really good idea, do you put it straight in the fridge or wait for it to cool down though?

Hi grouphug, yes, I just put it in a bowl of hot water for a bit so it doesn't feel chilly, but not actually heating it. Does this make a difference do you think?

If you have a thermometer when you express put it in your expressed milk and see the temp then when you have the bottle taken from the fridge in your bowl shake it after the normal time you have been doing and put the thermometer in again and put back in bowl again until the temp is the same. My little one is so fussy.

i just kept it in the fridge (at body temp) in the pump.
benefit of adding it to bottle is that if you knock it while pumping you don't lose the lot

Someone has posted on another thread about needing to 'scald' milk to stop it tasting off, hang on, I'll look.

It's on this thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/1364/484993 posted by Chipmonkey.

Good luck!

Kellymom link re sour tasting/smelling milk you might find useful:
www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/lipase-expressedmilk.html
BTW Have you tasted your fresh milk as a comparison?

Also link re not shaking ebm:
www.bflrc.com/ljs/breastfeeding/shakenot.htm

I put it straight in the fridge. Hope this helps.

Great, really helpful, thanks all. Fingers crossed I don't have that Lipase thing as scalding milk on top of all the other shenanigans would just be too tedious!