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Chereya
03-03-2004, 01:46 AM
I used to work full time outside of the home and my husband used to feed the baby with refrigerated BM that I pumped the previous day. Now that I am a WAHM, I have about 10 bags of EBM in the freezer. I have been planning on "rotating" that supply out with fresher EBM in preparation for a 5 day trip DH and I are taking alone. The trip will be in mid-June when DS will be 7.5 months old. He is currently 4 months old and we plan to hold off on starting solids for as long as we can or 6 months - which ever DS will allow!

My concern is, that this evening I defrosted a bag of EMB and it smelled really bad to me so I tasted some and it tasted as bad as it smelled. I threw it out with disappointment over 6 ozs wasted but the next two bags that I tried to defrost were just as bad. I think that the freezer failed me somehow though DH seems to think that my BM always smells bad and maybe I'm being overly sensitive. =( He has never "tasted" it though so he is not really an accurate judge.

I am not sure what to do about my plans to stock up in preparation for my trip. I certainly do not want to pump BM only to have it continue to go bad. If we start him on solids at 6 months, how much BM will he still need daily at 7.5 months when we go on our trip? If we have to, DS will drink formula but I don't much care for the idea.

Any ideas??

Chereya

Marissa
03-03-2004, 10:56 PM
My first thought is don't freeze in such large quantities. Better to freeze in smaller portions - 3 or 4 ounce bags - so if you have to toss, it's less.

We also tried to delay solids, and are still delaying. Our 6 month old son eats one "solid" meal a day, and that's cereal with EBM. So he eats about 12-13 ounces at day care, then eats basically non-stop when I get home (don't ask; bad situation). We also give him occasional vegetables, but breastmilk is still the staple.

As for your trip, please don't stress yourself out about having enough. Formula is with us for EXACTLY this reason. Believe me, I understand not wanting to resort to it. When I went back to work, I couldn't pump often enough to keep up with my son. After much agonizing, and many tears, I finally "broke down" and bought formula to supplement. Our son is FINE. He didn't, contrary to my fears, start to prefer the formula to BM. He takes both just fine, and my supply hasn't dropped much further.

So if you have to, when you're away you can have the caretaker use all the EBM first, and when that's out use formula to supplement.

Hope that helps!
~marissa

jerseygirl07067
03-05-2004, 01:26 PM
I had a very similar problem. I was so diligent in getting a nice freezer stash so I could have some freedom for an occasional night out with DH and also for when I return to work.

I was first clued in to this problem, when DD stopped wanting to take the occasional bottle of EBM. We usually gave her fresh EBM but then I decided to tap into my freezer stash and noticed that her willingness to take the bottle went downhill from that point on. So I tasted it and nearly gagged!! Just to make sure it wasn't a bottle issue, we then gave her fresh EBM and she drank it no problem.

Some storage things to make sure of before you assume it's the problem mentioned below, make sure to freeze immediately after pumping, the longer it stays in the fridge prior to freezing, the more of a chance is has to spoil. Also, make sure the milk is in the coldest part of the freezer (away from the sides) and that you don't have any pre-existing odors from food in the freezer. And make sure all the parts, bottles, bags involved with the storage are sterile, clean, and meant for breastmilk storage. If you've done all that, which I did, and still have that problem, keep reading. I can tell you it was upsetting for me to have to pitch over 100 oz of frozen EBM!

I am pretty sure that my problem is that I have too much lipase in my milk which causes it to go sour quickly. In fact, it even goes bad in the fridge after a few days, (so much for the 5-7 day rule for me!) And any freezer stash older than a two weeks or so is nasty. I discovered this problem after posting on the Baby Bargains site and getting some feedback. Supposedly it is a rare problem but if you do a search on the BB website you will find some posts. The solution is to scald the breastmilk just prior to the boiling point, then cool and freeze it. This deactivates the lipase. I believe it does remove some of the immunological properties of the milk, but the nutrients stay mostly intact. (I am also researching this currently to find out more). I am in the process of tweaking the routine so it works. I believe username lmintzer has the same issue and I am going to direct my questions to her.

In the meantime I am going to use fresh EBM in the occasional bottle.

HTH!
Mary