Since my breasts become engorged after Mia was born I started pumping every day. Usually it’s an hour after she eats and while she’s in deep sleep and I know she’ll be asleep for another two hours. I can generally pump 5-7 ozs of breastmilk at this time between both breasts. When I was breastfeeding Brooklin I was so new at it and I honestly didn’t pump every day. That left me with a very small milk stash. I went on a trip for 3 days when Brooklin was 2 months old and left my husband with a mere 38 ounces which he quickly used up.
I want to have a large stash of breastmilk so that if he needs it he’ll have plenty, and I have plenty! I plan on going on a trip again for 3 days in August. My husband will be home with the kids and he’s going to need the milk for Mia. I want to be sure he will have more than enough and also keep up my stash so I’m pumping every day still. I pump also because my breasts hurt and it really does help when Mia takes her long naps during the day.
Now I have a whole lot of breastmilk and it seems to be overtaking my freezer, all the small bags sure add up fast. So I need some advice.
wow that is awesome.. i could never make enough breast milk so sadly i had to stop.. but i’m glad you’re doing great at it!
I wish I had some advice to give, I’m actually interested in the advice others are going to give you. I have never breast fed my kids, but my daughter who lives with me is due soon and will be breast feeding so sure could use some info on this. 🙂
Wow you are doing great! I never had enough milk to pump and store, so eventually I had to supplement with formula. I hope next time around I produce more.
We got a small deep freezer and put it in the garage… it was only about $100 and I’m sure that if we used formula we would have spent a lot more than that buying cans upon cans before he was weaned.
My daughter use to freeze hers and label with the date it was saved. She did this as she worked out of the home and her hubby watched the kids when she was gone. (they work different shifts). It seemed to work for them. She always put the newest ones in back so there was no confusion with using oldest ones first.
At one point, I had about 1000 ounces in the freezer for my second child (she was a very tiny preemie and I was exclusively pumping….we burned through it far more quickly than I wanted to see).
Anyway, I froze all of my bags of milk flat, with dates and times and amounts on each bag, and stored them in date order in the freezer. Because they were flat, they were very easy to organize – each on end, lined up like files (see
No advice because we have a deep chest freezer thingy that is perfect for breast milk storage but I just wanted to say GO MAMA GO! You are a pumping machine! I’ve been pumping everyday since Sophia was born and only get about 3oz total per session so I’m slightly envious 😉 I have a decent stash going now, finally, since she is home and I can just nurse on demand instead of making sure I have enough pumped milk for the NICU.