liquid gold – A Little Bit of Everything

Unless you have twins of course! I don’t know about you but for the first couple of months I’d always breastfeed on one breast, hold the other with my arm/hand so no milk would flow out and then have my baby switch sides.

UNTIL.. my friend told me this genius idea: Breastfeed on one side and pump the other at the same time so your body knows to consistently produce two breasts full of milk. Genius? Or am I just late to the party?

It has helped keep my supply up so much! You should check out my post on other ways to increase milk supply. Also, in the event your LO doesn’t want the other breast, you’re left with different milk production schedules. You want your milk to come in at the same time with both breasts and be completely emptied out at the same time for your supply’s sake. If your LO doesn’t fully empty out your breast, make sure to pump the rest out.

You can save the pumped bottle, or give it to your little one if s/he’s still hungry. The point is.. once I started doing this, I never stopped. Unless of course, it’s the middle of the night and I’m half asleep. You should also read my article on clogged milk ducts so that this doesn’t happen to you by not expressing your milk often enough.

So there’s a quick tip to keeping your milk production in unison and keeping your milk supply up.

I’d love to hear your thoughts/comments!

When I first gave birth I knew right away I wanted to breastfeed as long as possible. This came with 101 questions and more. Luckily I had my doula to help me along with several questions and now I’m going on 7 months of breastfeeding/pumping.

One of my questions was about keeping breast milk out vs putting it in the fridge vs freezing it. I didn’t want any of my liquid gold going bad because I wasn’t sure how long I would have a supply for.
You’ll know if your milk has gone bad by the smell, but if you still can’t tell..

The answer to that question was simple. Babies won’t drink the milk if it’s bad.

If you try and give your LO milk and they reject it, rest assured that you can throw it out.

(FYI: this may happen anyway if you have too much citrus in your diet or something else your LO doesn’t take a liking to. I learned this by being sick and stocking up on lemon juice, grapefruit juice, orange juice, emergen-c and my LO was not having it those couple of days.)

Other than that.. your milk stays good in the fridge 3-5 days after you pump. And it stays good anywhere from 3-12 months in the freezer depending if you have a small, normal or deep freezer.

My advice is just date and freeze the milk after each pump. You’ll want to take as much air out as possible when sealing. Then you’ll want to lay your bag flat in your freezer until frozen and then reposition them upright to conserve space so that they’re like little files.
It takes about 3-5 minutes of running it under hot water to get it to a temperature similar to it coming out of your breast.

Make sure not to give it to your baby a second time if he or she doesn’t finish your frozen breast milk. Once unfrozen, you give it to your baby and if he or she doesn’t finish, you throw it out!

My favorite milk bags are the NUK storage bags and the Lasinoh storage bags.

I’d love to hear your thoughts or answer any questions you may have!

A Little Bit of Everything

Tag: liquid gold

Pumping while you breastfeed (the key to keeping your milk supply up)

How to tell if your breast milk has gone bad