freezing and defrosting abd reheating breastmilk??!!

[redsofas]

hi i have 12 week old ds who will be looked after for around 1 hour on teusday morning as ds1 has a speech therapy initial assesment appointment. I want this to be entirely focussed on him and not to have to stop and feed/ change amuse ds2. Basically my question is if i express and freeze breastmilk for this hour today when do i take it out to defrost and how does it get reheated and for how long ect...... sorry if this is an annoying post just dont want to leave ds2 without any milk incase he gets hungry.

anyone?

Breastmilk just needs defrosted immediately prior to use. Defrost it in a jug of hot water or run the container (is it going to be in a bottle already?) under a hot tap. It defrosts really quickly.

Hi, how is it stored? I store it in the freezer in those freezer bags so I take however many I need out of the freezer and defrost the sealed bags in a jug of hot water from the tap. This defrosts the milk and warms it. I then cut the bag and pour into a bottle to feed.

HTH TBH if you feed just before you leave he should be fine but I know it's nice to know the babysitter has the option!

Oh and just to add, don't use a microwave - breastmilk curdles in a microwave.

I freeze bm in breastmilk bags from Lansinoh. I freeze it with the bag laid flat so it is quicker to defrost.

To defrost it, I put cold water in a soup bowl, add the frozen milk bag and then fill the bowl to the top with boiling water.

when the milk is heated to a warmish temperature, transfer to a bottle and voila!

thankyou for the help! i am expressing with avent isis breastpump, is it ok to just put the bottle in the freezer? i know he probably wont need a feed within that hour but just incase he gets hungry i dont want him to be left with nothing there!!!! oh and thankyou very much for the tip about not microwaving i would've said to do just that otherwise!

Yes it is OK to freeze it in the bottle.

It will keep for a week in the fridge

As squashimodo said, no need to freeze if you are expressing now for tuesday, just leave it in the fridge, and warm it up with hot water as described when needed. Fine to keep it in the bottle you will use for feeding. But if you're only leaving him for an hour, surely no need for this, he will wait for you.

ok milk expressed and in the fridge and yes again probably no need for it but dont want to leave him with nothing, i got just over 3 oz with allot of hard work!!!

I always used to keep a stock of milk in the freezer so that I was never under pressure to have EBM when I needed it. I would just express 2oz at a time and freeze it once I had colected enough for a feed (I worked and had to leave feeds). I used breastshells to catch drip milk during a feed to so that none was wasted.

I also got very expert at hand expressing without a pump, which is very much faster.

Expressed milk is fine in the fridge(main body) for 5 days. I froze batches when the first amount expressed was no older than 48 hours.