Working Mom and Pumping schedule

Vidhya - Few questions

1. how to sterilise? - you take water and boil it? or can we use hot water from pipe directly.. in usa we can get cold/hot water directly from pipe.. is that good?

2. i use a liquid given in hosp to clean bottles.. what do u use?

3. i may work in feb.. let me know how to store milk? in shop they are selling some cool bags for storing milk.. whether i can use that and then keep this bag in fridge in office?? let me know

have few more questions dear.. but rithik is crying for feed.. will soon post my other questions

 

Thnx Vidyaa
Between, what s that liquid you are using for cleaning? no brand name?
I doubt seeing a freezer in my office fridge.. If not freezer i can keep it in fridge na? also, once you keep expressed milk in room temp for 1-2hrs and then again shall we put back in a fridge?

*Adding - I may join work in feb dear.. Rithik will be 2.5mon old by then.. For some people milk stops by 3rd.. I wonder how it will be for me.. Right now, milk is leaking too much and I would need to pump every 3-4hrs once.. I pump 150ml from each breasts every 3hrs.. I always feed LO with bottles and I try to pump and give him fresh milk..

Few more pointers ladies since am also very well used up with this pumping schedules

1. If I want to feed LO in 2-3 hrs then I pump milk and keep it in room temp
2. Secondly, if eg- if time is 6.30pm and if I pump milk around 6pm then I will give this fresh milk for my LO for his 6.30pm feed and store rem milk in fridge(not freezer) for his next feed.. if i know i pumped more milk and not going to use it for current day then I will put it in freezer..

3. room temp milk - no thawing needed.. fridge milk 15min need to put in warm water.. frozen milk takes 30min to bring to room temp ladies

 

Vidyaa, great thread!

Anitha, You get Microwave steam sterilizer bags by Medela. It is very easy to use - just put all bottles, horns etc and add some water and m/w for about 3 minutes. I used to sterlize horns once a day and air dry everything. I had enough bottles to rotate through.

I used regular dishwasher detergent to clean. Once my baby got older I used to put everything but horns in the dishwasher (top rack) and then air dry.

You do get breastmilk storage bags/bottles. For me EvenFlow bottles seemed most value for money. I think they are about $3.99 for 4 bottles. Each holds 120 ml. I had about 16-20 such bottles.

 

Vidya, on most occasions I used the pump not more than two times a day so sterilised it with every use. But when I had to use it on more occasions, I stored it in a zip loc in the fridge, horn and all. Heck it was cold the third time I wanted to use it. brrrr, but I could reduce the number of times I needed to wash it, especially on a rainy day.
Anitha, if you are feeding on demand milk will not stop by the 3rd month for almost 97 percent of nursing moms.
Vidya, on occasions I made only just about enough to last the child while I would be separated from him, DH then did re-refigerate the milk he has not used up and gave it for the next feeding after reheating once more.
LLLI | What are the LLLI guidelines for storing my pumped milk?
from the link: .

I did this when K was nearing 9/10 months, not in the early stage. So Anitha, this may not be applicable to you. I also stored in 2.5 to 3 oz bottles, so wastage if any was less than one oz.
Yes, you can put it back in fridge after a couple of hours, or you can use a cooler to transport back your milk home.

p.s. vidya am happy you found the time to start this thread. Excellent thread. Thanks.

 

I thought I would put my schedule here as well. I work from 8 - 5, but because of the commute have to leave at around 7.15 AM. This is what I do:

1. Pump in the morning before I leave, at 6.30. I just leave this milk outside, and my mom just heats it and give to LO. This way not much nutrients are lost.
2. Pump @9.30, 12.30 and 3.30 at office. Put it in the fridge there, not freezer.

This is what my mom do, after the freshly expressed milk from the morning, she takes the yesterdays expressed milk from the fridge.

If there is any milk, which is not used by that day, I freeze them for later use. I think the quality of the milk goes down like this ....

1. best is direct from the breast.
2. then freshly expressed milk
3. latest milk from the fridge
4. last but definitely better than formula, is the frozen one.

Thanks!

 

Dears,

When we say milk quality is lost in frozen milk then what's the use of giving that to LO's? I think I have a thread opended already to discuss about flakes & smell of frozen milk anyways..

sunikrishnan4u - Are you not storing milk in freezer directly in office? if fridge then that has to be used within 24hrs na? we cant use that milk for more than 24hrs..

Also, frozen milk can be kept inside fridge but fridge milk cannot be placed inside freezer I think...

 

Anitha,
I also mentioned about this in the other thread..

Never freeze milk directly after pumping...First you have to put the pumped milk in the fridge and let it cool down..Then only freeze it.

 

Sudha,

I think the procedure of milk storage news distributed to all people are so contraditory I think..
In NICU I was told to keep pumped milk in fridge ONLY WHEN WE USE THAT WITHIN 24hrs else need to immediatedly put it into freezer to use it at later point of time..

But freezer milk can be brought to fridge.

 

mommies i hv a question. i just got my avent UNO pump and planning to start pumping from tomorrow.atleast one expressed feed i wld try to give to LO... so a few doubts

1)i dont hv a MW/ elec steam sterilizer yet, so would be boiling everything . once done, do i remove the bottles and pump parts and air dry them?

2)once air dry how do u store the bottles? just screw the sealing disks n stack them?

3) once sterilized, for how long do the bottles stand sterile unusued?

4)vidya i see u pump once in office, but what if i were to pump more than once, do u wash with warm water and soap in office too?

5) DD is 3 1/2months, so can i re refrigerate the unused milk? and use it for next feed?

these are the questions i hv as of now... more to come though...

PS: sorry if some of these Qs are extremely naive . this is my first time to pump and to even use any feeding bottles