Storing breastmilk:

Once you have expressed you will need to store your breastmilk safely and correctly.

Ensure that the expressed breast milk is stored in a sterilised bottle or sterilised plastic container with a tight-fitting lid; breast milk storage bags are ideal and built for this.

We love removing all the air from a Milk Storage Bag and stacking them flat inside a container in the freezer for the best use of space!

Breast milk will keep at room temperature for 4 hours and in the fridge for up to 2 days. Store milk at the back of the fridge where it is coldest and isn't affected as much by the door opening.

Don’t add freshly expressed breast milk to cold expressed breast milk. Keep them separate and labelled. Wait until the milk has cooled to the same temperature and only store one day’s milk per bag, i.e. do not mix different days' milk.

You can also freeze the expressed milk, in a freezer box inside the fridge for 2 weeks, in a separate-door freezer for 3–6 months — stored as far back as possible, or in the deep freeze for 6–12 months.

Your milk is amazing, and produces different nutrients depending on what time of day you feed or pump! Your morning breast milk has different properties than evening milk (morning milk will have more sugars and works to wake and give energy for the day, whereas evening milk has melatonin and fats to assist with sleep and keeping your little one fuller for longer) ~ so you don’t want to give morning expressed milk in the night ​and vice versa, not critical, but great if you can help it.

Your baby will respond to the milk appropriately, and the last thing you want to do is signal to them that it's time to get energetic and playful at four in the morning.

To make sure you're giving your little the right milk supply for the time of day, label your milk with Date, Time, Volume & Baby's Name (particularly if this is going to a carer).

Transporting Breast Milk:

When transporting breastmilk you want to keep it at the temperature you are intending to store it at. For example if frozen to go back in the freezer, make sure you keep it frozen, to do this we recommend a cooler bag with ice packs.

If the milk happens to defrost, you will need to use it within 2-4 hours or store at the back of a fridge and use within 48 hours, do no re-freeze thawed milk.

During the hot season be sure to keep thawed milk in a cool transportation space too as the temperature from the sun inside a vehicle or bag may heat the breastmilk unintentionally.

Products that help:

Our 5 star rated Breast Milk Storage Bags designed by our founder Laura, come with a handy free pen!

All of our Milkbar Advanced Flow Breast Pumps come with a free Breast Milk Storage Guide Magnet for easy reference when storing your liquid gold.

You can also purchase our Magnets here!

Happy Pumping Mama! x