warming breastmilk - middle night feedings

[ckso]

I'm pumping and giving DD a bottle of expressed breastmilk for the middle of the night feeding.

What I currently do is have the bottle ready in the fridge and when DD wakes up in the middle of the night, I put the bottle in a cup of warm water to warmm up the milk. Course while the milk is warming and takes a few minutes DD is screaming and I'm afraid she'll wake up my toddler and husband.

For those that are doing the same thing, do you have any tips on gettng the milk warmed as fast as possible?

Or can you share your routine?

Also, when do you pump?

[karstmama]

i never warmed. ds liked it cold. i just shook it vigorously to re-mix.

i pumped at least every 4 hours while awake, and once in the night when i got up to pee, for at least 20 minutes each time. of course, he was in the nicu, so i didn't have to get up with him, which made a difference.

[Dream]

How often is your baby waking up? Right now DD is 4 months and only wakes up once after midnight, so I pump around midnight so I can leave it out. But when she used to wake up every 3 hrs in the begining I did the same as you. I warmed a bit of water in the microwave for 1 min and then leave the bottle in the cup. By the time I change her diaper and grab a bib and prepare the milk is warm enough. Ofcourse it helps that DH is a sound sleeper.

[BayGirl2]

We used a bottle warmer at first. Ours had a cold area for storage and a quick bottle heater. That way we could store the cold milk upstairs near the baby. We also have a quick-boiling water kettle that gets water hot fast.

But we stopped warming very early on. If your DC can tolerate non-warmed bottles you will save yourself a lot of trouble in the longer term.

[mmsmom]

According to LLL pumped breast milk can sit at room temperature for 6 hours (though others say up to 8 hours). So depending on your pumping schedule you could see if DD would take room temperature vs. warm. I pumped exclusively for a while so I would pump before I went to bed then just leave the bottle ready to go in DS's room & use that bottle for the middle of the night feeding.

[momm]

I would just run the kitchen tap really hot and hold the bottle under it for a minute. DS liked it a little cooler in any case

[chiisai]

I would pump at the 10pm feeding, while DH fed DD the 10pm feeding via bmilk bottle. It took a few days of pumping in between after feedings to be able to start that.

For that feeding, we used a bottle warmer, not for as long as it said, there was a point where I could just swish it around so it was room temp, so that was even faster. Though, the aveda warmer warmed pretty quickly if we wanted it really "from the tap" warm ;)

[FTMLuc]

I would pour warm water in a small saucepan, put the bottle in the water and put the saucepan on the burner, it took only 30-45 seconds.

[PGTB]

When I would pump enough at bedtime for night time feeding, I would just leave the milk outside at room temp, it would usually be 4 hours or less before I had to use it anyway.

Refrigerated BM - I would just take it out of the fridge before going to bed to let it warm up to room temp, by the time I needed it it was ready. Most of my refrigerated milk was scalded due to lipase issue and it won't go bad in a few hours sitting outside.

Formula - when we supplemented in the beginning, we just used the bottle warmer for the refrigerated formula.

[Momto1]

Don't shake BM :) http://www.bflrc.com/ljs/breastfeeding/shakenot.htm

[MSWR0319]

I just gave it to DS cold or left some out at night if I had just pumped and didn't want to freeze it. He never had any problems with it cold.

[Pinky]

I agree with the others that suggested trying it cold... my DD took cold BM and never had a problem with it.

[Uno-Mom]

I agree with the others that suggested trying it cold... my DD took cold BM and never had a problem with it.

:yeahthat: I kinda think this helped Sprog enjoy cold cow's milk when the time came. But I do know that some babies are pickier about temp.

You asked about pumping: are you pumping exclusively or in addition to? My routine changed big time as my daughter aged. I don't know how old your little one is, so it's hard to compare. All along, though, my best pumping time was early morning, after her first feeding. I pumped twice at work, and again to top off about 1/2 hour after she went to bed. I didn't do any bottled in the middle of the night, though.

[Uno-Mom]

I would just run the kitchen tap really hot and hold the bottle under it for a minute. DS liked it a little cooler in any case

We did that, too, for the very first bottles when Sprog was in her fourth month. Then she eased into drinking them cold.

[Penny's Pappa]

We ran the bottle under hot water for a few minutes. Then we wanted to see if Penny would take it cold; she did. We never bothered to warm up the milk after that.

[Penny's Pappa]

Don't shake BM :) http://www.bflrc.com/ljs/breastfeeding/shakenot.htm

Yeah....I don't buy that for a second. Yes, proteins can denature under physical stress, but I don't think shaking would provide enough energy to do it. You probably do more damage by freezing and thawing (due to ice crystal formation) than you do by shaking.

ETA: I don't mean repeated freeze/thaws -- you definitely shouldn't do that.

[joules]

In the beginning when DS was feeding every 2/3/4 hours, I would just leave the bm out. Then when we had to refrigerate it, DH would run it under hot water. I didn't like how much water that wasted, so I would put the water in a mug and microwaved it, then put the milk bottle in there (the ones that came with the medela pump, I felt like it was thinner plastic and would transfer the heat better), then transfer to the feeding bottle. Then we got a thermos water heater thing (?). It stores the water at a certain temp and you press on the pump to get the water out. This was the fastest way - I put the water in a mug and put the milk bottle in. I would only do it enough to take the edge off the coldness, especially in the winter. DH liked to leave it in longer to warm it.

[hoodlims]

I also recommend the weaning to cold, but if you want to continue to warm it, how about trying glass bottles? They tend to hold heat better and get warmer faster. That will at least cut down on the screaming time.

[BabbyO]

I nursed when at home, so I never had to warm a bottle. But DS drank plenty of pumped milk at the sitter's when I was at work. We NEVER warmed his milk...

He drank it cold from the fridge the first time he had it. Our pediatrician actually recommended NOT warming it from the beginning. She's a mom, too, and said, if we didn't get him used to warm milk it was one less thing we'd have to worry about when out and about, etc. Smart lady...I'm glad she clued me in.

That said if your DC won't take it cold, I'd go for some of the rec's given here (leave setting out, warm water, etc).

[ashleybama24]

Do you have a hot water kettle? It boils water really fast and then we were able to defrost frozen milk or warm up a bottle in the warm water. We would just let a bag of frozen or cold milk float in the water for say 30 seconds and it was ready to go.