Monday, August 13, 2007

Slice of... Breastmilk?

Because it's just too slick not to share, here it is. Developed by David Green himself: The Green Family Breastmilk Storage System. (I know, you're totally excited. Me too!)

Step one: Pump milk.

Step two: Pour milk into plastic storage bag. (I like the Lansinoh brand- they are a thicker plastic, have double zippers, and a nice place on the tab- instead of on the baggie- to record date and amount.)

Step three: Place bags of milk on a flat surface in the freezer. We use a little piece of cardboard.

Step four: When frozen, take your slender volume of breast milk and file it in your card catalog, by date. We use an old ice cream container to organize our frozen milk.

Step five: When it comes time to thaw milk, select baggie (by date, using oldest first) and run under hot water. Since the milk is frozen in such a thin layer, it will thaw and heat quickly under hot water, shortening the time you have to make a fussy baby wait.

David developed this system for two reasons. First, the thin "slices" of milk are so much easier to store than the little blobs of frozen milk. So freeaing them flat works perfect. They take up so much less space this way. Second, the milk thaws so quickly this way, and since a nursing baby is not used to waiting for a bottle to warm, this made life much easier for David. If you try to thaw breast milk that is frozen in a plastic or glass bottle of some kind, it will take forever to melt the frozen core. In a plastic bag, David can use his fingers to move the milk around, which helps to speed the thawing process.

While I do much sighing and eye rolling when it comes to David's detailed way of life, I do find that this system to be genius. (Know what I hate about the word genius? I hate that no matter how many years I spend on this planet I cannot spell genius. No matter how I spell it, it looks wrong. Then I spell check it, and I'm still not sure I have it right. Which is pretty ironic, and completely idiotic, to be using the word genius, but misspelling it. This irony describes many areas of my life, come to think of it.) Anyway, as I was saying, David detailed side balances my own personal philosophy, which is: Do it as quickly as possible, even if it's sloppy, but just GET IT DONE. Deal with the consequences of the sloppiness later. This is a philosophy that I follow faithfully, followed by my other motto: Do it later.
So David and me, we are the yin and yang of things. Which is the way it should be... right?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi! I'm lurking at your blog. Does that scare you?
I was visiting Swistle's blog and saw your comment so I had to swing on over.
Could this entry crack me up any more?
I just wish all these people knew David as we do. They would see so much more humor in this.
Perhaps your next blog should be on how to build a rain fly.
Missing you!

justme said...

i could never pump enough with my first, and with my second she wouldn't take the bottle. so although i had all this breastmilk and was prepped, no luck. i like your system though....my D would have loved that.

Black Sheeped said...

This is a very fancy system!

Swistle said...

That system makes my eyes light up. I love it. Paul and I are the same balance, only he's the one who will do anything as long as it'll be done fast--and then he suffers the consequences later, while I'm primly but efficiently thawing out my slice.

Mama's Moon said...

In a word: Genius. He's an absolute genius!!! And how ironic is it that a daddy came up with this awesome idea??! I just love it! Now I gotta run and spread the news to all my booby-pumpin' friends!!!

Erin said...

If I could find a flat space in my freezer, I would employ this breastmilk storage plan STAT. But my husband and I share a common disorganization disorder. It's sad. Very sad. Our freezer is such that sometime we don't realize it's been left cracked open because the insides are in such disarray that the door cannot close correctly. So my milk is stored very inefficient little blobs. HELP!!

Marie Green said...

Erin,
Our freezer has the same problem! This is one of the reasons the "system" got invented. Just go to town and throw out a bunch of old stuff- if you are like us, you don't ever throw frozen stuff, because it's good forever, right? No, it's not. Anyway, get rid of some of that, and then you'll have space! AND, you won't have to dig for breastmilk blobs while Emmett screams. =)

Shauna Loves Chocolate said...

Nice post. I used a similar system and it was awesome. And good for you to be bfeeding!

2Forgetful said...

What a fabulous idea! I used to freeze flat and stack but I NEVER thought to use ice cream containers to store. I just had them in freezer bags. I will be sharing this will everyone I know.

Ditto on the Lanisoh bags. I had been using Gerber which I do NOT recommend and only switched the last three months.