How to Store Frozen Breast Milk

Before I became a mom, I was proud to show off my freezer full of meat I bought on sale, bags of cheese I got for super cheap, and frozen veggies I had prepped and bagged myself. Now that I have an infant, I beam from pride when I open my freezer and see the stash of frozen breast milk accumulating. I exclusively pump, but we supplement with formula at night (because this mama needs those 4-5 hour stretches of sleep). Supplementing formula at night means I am able to sock away a decent amount of milk each week. My husband recently asked how long I was going to pump, and I was slightly ashamed to admit that I’m having an internal contest with myself to see how much breast milk I can accumulate before stopping. While he thinks I’m a bit crazy, I have a feeling there are at least a few new moms who can relate.

If you are cozying up to your breast pump every few hours like I am, you too probably have a stash of extra breast milk. To help you keep it organized, and to allow your freezer to continue to freeze adult food as well, I will offer the best ways to organize frozen breast milk that I have found on the internet or talking with friends.

Breast Milk Storage Guidelines

The first thing to remember when you’re storing breast milk, is that you need to keep it at the correct temperatures, and use it in a timely manner. La Leche League, and numerous other websites, provide safe guidelines for breast milk storage. The table below is from the guidelines I found on their website.

Since the milk can’t be kept indefinitely, it’s important that you have the milk stored in an organized manner to make sure you use it up before it should be tossed. A lot of work goes in to collecting breast milk, so the last thing you want to do is have to toss it because you waited too long to use it!

Cubes

While breast milk storage bags (which I’ll talk about next) are one of the most common ways to store frozen breast milk, they can be costly to keep buying. If you are on a budget, consider freezing your breast milk in to cubes.

 

I asked for a couple Nuk brand freezer trays on my baby registry. These little silicone trays are meant for freezing homemade baby food, but the compartments each hold 1oz which makes them very handy for freezing breast milk. Simply pour in the milk after each pumping, then pop out the frozen blocks later in the day. The milk cubes can easily be stored in plastic baggies until needing to be used. Have one bag per week, and you can make sure that the cubes get used before the milk is 6 months old.

This method is inexpensive and works great for milk that you are going to thaw at home. Simply remove a couple milk cubes from the bag, thaw, and feed. If you do need to take the frozen cubes with you, they will fit through the wide opening of the short/fat style bottles, like Avent brand, to be thawed later.

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Breast Milk Storage Bags

I personally prefer to store the breast milk in the milk storage bags because it seems to be a more organized method. The bags can freeze flat for super efficient storage. Plus these bags have a little area at the top to write the date the milk was expressed and the amount of milk in each bag. I tend to put 4-6 oz in each bag so I have just enough for one feeding when I thaw.

I have a little system set up in my freezer using the shelves on the door to help me keep them organized. I use one of the little shelves to lay the currently freezing bag flat. Once they bags of milk are frozen, I line them up in another small shelf on my freezer’s door. I always put the newest bag in the back so they are organized chronologically.

Since breast milk has a frozen shelf life of about 6 months, I want to make sure that once I start using the milk, it gets used in the correct order. This helps ensure that the oldest milk will get used first. Once the door shelves are full, I transfer a bunch of bags to the deep freezer to longer term storage.

Canned Drink Boxes

My favorite way to store frozen breast milk is in the boxes that canned drinks come in, like soft drinks or bubbly waters. These boxes are the perfect size to stand up the flat, frozen bags. I can fit about 25 bags of milk in each box, which will be at least a few days’ worth when I stop pumping and start using the frozen milk. When I moved the boxes to the deep freezer, I realized that the freezer was too small to lay the boxes down flat, so I needed to stand them up. To keep the bags of milk from falling out, I use a long strop of mailing tape over the entire length of the box and bags. Then I use a shorter strip of tape across the middle of the box to keep the sides in. This has worked really well to keep all the bags secured and organized when I stand the boxes up in the freezer.

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Gift Bags

In my attempts to stash away as many bags of breast milk as I could, I ended up using all the bubbly water boxes we had in our house. After sweeping through the house, I found a few medium-sized gift bags that were a perfect fit for the flat, frozen bags of milk. I had to try a few different sizes of gift bags before I found the ones that worked best, but once I found them, I went and bought extras because they worked so well. Each bag holds around 20 bags of milk, so slightly less than the boxes, but because of their size they are easier to fit in smaller freezer storage spaces.

These bags helped fill the extra space in the deep freezer. They also came in handy when I was traveling for work and had to store a whole bunch of breast milk in the office freezer. I put the bags in the gift bags, folded over the top, and pushed them to the back of the freezer until I was able to move them to a larger freezer. The gift bags are inconspicuous, so even in the office full of men, no one noticed the bags of milk hidden behind their microwave dinners.

Stashing frozen breast milk is a great way to continue giving your baby breast milk after stopping nursing or pumping. I’m happy to know that even after I stop pumping I have almost 2 months’ worth of milk stored and ready to use. It is going to save us on formula costs, as well as give our baby extra time with breast milk after I choose to stop.

Until next time, I’m the Domestic CEO, helping you love your home.