Hand expressing - how do you save milk?

[greenlawn]

After years of fannying about with breast pumps, and feeling utterly useless at the amount of milk produced, I've finally (with ds3) discovered how to hand express! (long story, but basically when he wasn't well I needed to relieve myself!)

I was really shocked at how much more milk came out compared to a pump, but how could I save the milk? If I let it run into a sterilised bottle, is it enough to have clean hands (washed and then rubbed with gel?) - it seems such a shame to waste it.

I clicked with hand expressing after DS was born, having agonised over the pump with DD for a dribble of milk.

I just do it straight into a bottle with well washed hands. I wouldn't use gel because of the chemicals, but that's a personal thing. He's had plenty of things fished out of his mouth with completely unwashed hands so I figure it's fine .

You know that you do not have to sterilise breast pumps and bottles you store breast milk in?

turtledove...really? how come?

breast milk doesn't react the same as other milk - it doesn't allow bacteria to grow in the same way so can be kept for longer. you are advised to sterilise pumps sometimes, but generally just to wash in hot soapy water. anti-bacterial gel would be too far for me, i would rather ds ingest a few germs than that stuff!

ButterflyEffect - I used to use a pint glass too!

And given that I didn't sterilise my hands before feeding DS, I wouldn't worry too much about anti-bac gels and the like, just a good wash with hot water and soap.

I did it straight into the bottle. Just rinsed it with boiling water to be on the safe side.

why do the hvs go on about sterilising everything? or is this one more thing to add to the list of things that the hv get wrong?

Medela make a funnel to allow you to express into a narrow necked bottle but I think most bf mums use wide necked bottles anyway so you could just express straight into those. Here's the funnel anyway Here