I don't know what I'd do without these! (Avent Breast Milk Storage Kit)

Member Name: Louise1234

Product:	Avent Breast Milk Storage Kit
Date:	19/02/01 (420 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Enables you to build up a supply of breat milk in your freezer

Disadvantages: Only freeze 3 or 4oz as opposed to the recommended max of 6oz as you will find less bags break

Without these storage bags and my breast pump I would never have been able to keep feeding my baby breast milk whilst I went back to work.

Firstly you buy a kit at £7.99 which contains 20bags, 10 clips, labels and 4 circular 'base supports' to put them in until they are frozen.

You can also buy bags separately at £2.99 for 40 and a pack of clips and labels at £2.99 for 20.

The bags themselves are presterilised so you don't need to worry about sterilising them - one less thing to worry about! They have a printed measurement on the side which is fairly accurate, which goes up to 8oz. (You can't freeze that much though - see below)

You can either tip milk into them from a bottle or breast shell which is the method I find best. Or if you buy the Avent bottle (really more a 'bag supporter' than a bottle) that goes with the bags then you can put the bag in that and express milk, via your Avent pump, striaght into the bag.

You then seal the bag with the clip and label it with the date. I also put how much is in the bag on the label as once frozen it can be hard to tell. Then you can put in the freezer. I have heard two differing opinions as to how long breast milk can stay frozen for. Some say 3 months and some say 6 - for best measure I try to stick to 3 and continuely replace old stock. On a Friday that days expressed milk gets frozen and on a Sunday evening 'older' milk gets defrosted.

Avent tell you that you can feed your baby striaght from the defrosted bag via a special bottle and special teats but I have never done this as I prefer to defrost the bag and then tip it into the bottle. Also this falls down as often I need two or more bags per bottle, depending on how much I have frozen in each bag.

Avent advise you that you can freeze up to 6oz of milk in one bag, however I would advise you to only freeze 3, or perhaps 4oz, as I find the incidence of bag splitting during
defrosting is a lot less with a smaller amount. Or you could try double bagging - either way you use roughly the same amount of bags.

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