Milk Stash - July 2010

It has been five months since I last posted a picture of my milk stash (click to see previous stash). Since then, I've moved the frozen breastmilk to a separate deep freezer - a 5 cu. ft freezer that we specifically bought to keep the milk.

The milk was filling up our freezer and we were running out of space for our food. Besides, I didn't really relish the idea of mixing the milk with the raw meat we keep in the freezer even though the milk is separately bagged in Ziploc gallon bags.

So how do I organize Swe-cha's frozen milk stash ?

1. We start off with 6 oz of milk for each bag. I normally use Lansinoh milk bags, they're the cheapest that I am able to find at $12.99 / 50 pcs from Babies R Us (but can use a 20% off coupon) or $10.99 at Walmart. Recently, I came across some Gerber Seal N Go bags that were on clearance at a local supermarket and needless to say, I cleaned out their shelves. Unfortunately, there were only 5 boxes left.

2. Each 6 oz Lansinoh or Gerber bag then goes into the regular freezer and is laid down flat to freezer. These bags get labeled with the date and the time when the milk was expressed.

3. When frozen, the milk bag then goes to a Ziploc gallon freezer bag, each gallon bag has 9 milk bags (with 6 oz milk each). Each freezer bag is then numbered. It's easier to keep track of numbered bags, compared to dated ones.

4. I keep a small notebook / memo pad with a list of the numbered bags and the dates of milk that each bag contains. I also have a column where I indicate where each bag went.

So far, I have been fortunate enough to have ample milk supply for my son to have fresh milk every day. I freeze the excess milk that I am able to pump and freeze it for the future. When my deep freezer gets full, I give the milk away and I mark these on my notebook - who got the milk and when they got it.

So far, I'm up to freezer bag #66, the first 24 of which have already been given away. As you can see, the freezer is filled up again, time to call for milk pickup :)