Expert: Sally Wendkos Olds - 8/12/2008

Question
I want my 4 year old to be more involved with her new baby brother, so i decided that i would start to pump my milk into bottles so that she can participate in feeding him. However i like the intimate time i am spending with my son while he feeds from the breast,so my question is when i pump my milk how long can it be refrigerated before it is no good, or is there a time limit on it's freshness?

Answer
Dear Bridgette,

It's fine that you want your 4-year-old to get to know her baby brother, but it's usually best to wait to give a baby bottles until breastfeeding has been well established -- a few weeks at least.

I have an entire chapter in my book about pumping and storing breast milk. I'll attach just a little bit here. I hope it helps.

Regards,

Sally
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Sally Wendkos Olds
Author, THE COMPLETE BOOK OF BREASTFEEDING: Eiger & Olds, 3rd edition 1999, published by Workman Publishing & Bantam Books, and available in most public libraries, bookstores & La Leche League chapters. Now in revision for a fourth edition, with Laura M. Marks, M.D.
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Storage Times for Collected Milk
Basically, your collected breast milk will keep for several hours at room temperature if it’s covered; it will keep in the refrigerator for about two days; and if you want to keep it longer than that, you should freeze it.
  The following guidelines should assure safety and maximum benefit to your healthy, full-term baby. If you are expressing and storing milk for a preterm infant or a baby hospitalized for some other reason, you need to follow the recommendations of the institution where your baby is being cared for. Otherwise, you risk failing to have your milk given to your baby.
• To be given to baby within 30 minutes: No special storage needed. Can be kept at room temperature.
• To be given to baby within 6 to 10 hours: Pour into a clean container; cap tightly. If it’s convenient, refrigerate the milk. This is the safest course, even though human milk kept in a capped clean container does not grow bacteria at normal room temperature (66° to 72°F) because of its ability to slow the growth of bacteria. If the room temperature is higher than 72°, be sure to refrigerate it.
• To be given to baby within 48 hours (2 days): Pour into a clean container; cap tightly. Refrigerate at 40°F (4°C) or below.
• To be given to baby within 1 to 2 weeks: Pour into a clean container; cap tightly. Quick-cool in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Then freeze in refrigerator-freezer unit.
• To be given to baby after 2 weeks: Pour into a sterile container; cap tightly. Quick-cool in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Then freeze in refrigerator-freezer unit.
• To be given to baby within 3 to 6 months: Pour into a sterile container; cap tightly. Quick-cool in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Then freeze at 0°F (-18°C) or below in the freezer of a two-door refrigerator or a deep freeze that is not opened often. Not all freezers stay cold enough for long-term storage. Check the temperature with a freezer thermometer at different places in the unit. The freezer should maintain a constant temperature of 0°F. If it keeps ice cream very solid, it is probably cold enough.
  If your freezer does not get this cold but does keep other frozen foods hard, keep the milk in the center of the freezer and use within three to four months. Frost-free refrigerators, which have a warming element, generally do not maintain 0°.
  To find out whether your milk thaws and then refreezes in your freezer, check by keeping an ice cube in a little jar; if you check it a day later and find that it has melted and refrozen, you’ll know that this has probably happened to your milk, too. If so, you’ll have to discard the milk.
  It’s best to use milk soon after collecting it. Ideally, you will not keep it longer than three months. For one thing, milk collected when your baby is two months old will not meet her needs as effectively when she is six months old.