Breastfeeding milk from sterilised bottle....

[bradleybecky]

So am thinking about getting my boyfriend to feed the baby. Am breastfeeding. How do I express? Into the bottle? How do i clean the equipment? If baby drinks from the sterilised bottle.....and there's milk leftover. ...how to store the leftover? Where to store? Or get rid of that milk altogether? And sterilise bottle again? How does it all work! ?:(

Express your milk (hand express or pump) into a clean, sterilised container. A sterilised bottle is fine. If baby has fed from the bottle then leftovers should be discarded after an hr. Offering half the amount at a time might reduce waste?
You need a clean, sterile bottle and teat each time. Once milk is expressed it can be stored in the back of a fridge for up to 5 days but if you are not going to use it sooner than that I would recommend freezing it instead.

The midwife at a recent breast feeding clinic we went to said expressed milk can be at room temperature for 8 hours. Was a bit dubious with it though.

Do they do clinics like that where you are? They spoke of lots of support for it all. Will have more first hand experience in the next few days ......

Express into a sterilised bottle. Some people find hand expressing works best, some people find an electric pump is more effective, so don't be put off if you don't get much out to start with and remember that what you express is not the same as what baby gets out! So many people get worried that their baby is starving when they only express a little bit so I just wanted to add that!

Guidelines I was given by lactation consultant - fresh milk can be kept at room temp for 8 hours. In a fridge for 2 days. Frozen for 3 months. You can get storage bags which come sterile inside so you just pour the milk in, close it and put it in the freezer. Then defrost either in the fridge or under warm water.

I've never heard to discard after 1 hour and never have with my DD (bottle fed ebm from 6 months old by our nanny). You can just put it in the fridge till next feed/ up to 2 days.

There's a helpful summary here:
www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/breastfeeding-help/expressing-storing/

chipin the 'discard after an hour' thing is in there too. I was told it's because bacteria can develop if the milk is in contact with baby's mouth and then left a while.

Yes, you should never keep partially drunk milk for later.

You can buy special breastmilk storage bags which you use to line a bottle. The bottle screws onto the pump. You store small amounts of milk in each bag and combine as many as you need for a feed.

Freshly pumped milk can be stored in the fridge for 1 week or freezer for 6 months.

Amazing! What would I do without this forum honestly! ? Thank you very much! That link is helpful! I'll find out about a local breastfeeding clinic too! X

Is therea particular reason you wany to "get your boyfriend to feed the baby"?

Imo expressing and having someine else feed the baby for the sake of it, or because they want to yes, you, mil is time consuming and an utter pain. You have to express, sterilise everything, and then the baby might not take the bottle anyway. Far easier to just feed yourself!

If it's because you want some time away from the baby and need to be able to leave milk, fair enough.

Maybe it's because I live overseas - guidelines are very different here, as per my previous posts. Odd that it varies so much!

You'll find a lot of conflicting advice around how long you can store milk from. I'm not uk based so maybe follow NHS guideline.

Oh crossed post chipin!

I'm going away for a training course for the whole day so need him to

Sometimes the milk can taste different after being frozen and defrosted, so if you're not going to be around while baby is bottle fed it'd be a good idea to do a 'taste-test' with baby first. Also baby might not like certain bottles. My DD only took the third brand we tried so don't buy loads of one before you've tested that too!

Anotherday surely our milk isn't that much different from British milk?!

If you are gong away it might be an idea to try and get your baby used to a bottle well before you do so. Often exclusively breastfed babies are bottle refusers so you need to be sure the baby will feed from a bottle.

There is a great website called Kellymom which is full of information on breast feeding.