wt to do? travelling without the breastfeed baby

N

nikimom

Registered User
will be out of town for 3 days early next month without my 3mth daughter, will be 4mths by then.
i'm planning to bring along the medela mini pump, there is no freezer in the hotel, i suppose i can put htem in teh fridge (just for 3 days) but how can i travel them to the airport and flying over without ruining the milk, the good news is its jjust a 1.5hr flight.
pls pls advice
 
The breast milk will spoil between pulling it our of your freezer and arriving at the hotel at your destination?
We have taken breast milk on 20 hour flights, closer to 24 when you consider how early we arrive at the airport. We take frozen breast milk, put it in an insulated bag (with refreezable ice) and politely ask the flight attendants to heat it up when we need it. They have also tossed the whole bag into the plane's refrigerators for us.
If you envision it being a problem, bring along a couple of bottles of dry formula and add the water on the plane.
 
i think you mean that you want to "save" the milk you pump for your baby when you return home so that it's not "wasted"???

if that's the case, i'd say forget it... dump it, will make it much easier for you...besides, you can always get more where that came from.

just pump as you would normally feed to keep up the supply and then when you get home, BF again as normal.
 
Are you sure there is no freezer in the hotel? Or just in your hotel room? Hotel staff may be more helpful than you imagine... surely keeping ice packs frozen for you would not be too much trouble?

But when you get home you will want to feed your baby directly as much as possible to boost your supply etc. Even if you had it frozen you would not be able to stop it partially defrosting during the journey, and defrosted milk has a limited shelf life.

So I agree with Cara, unless you will not be seeing much of your baby during working hours when you get back, in which case keeping the partially defrosted (but still chilled) milk would be useful.
 
Breast milk will keep for up to 7 days in a fridge (between 0 degrees C and 4 degrees C) whereas frozen and defrosted milk will only keep for 24 hours. Is there any way you can keep the milk chilled while you are away rather than frozen? As this might give you more leeway.

One of my co-leaders in Hong Kong once helped a mother from Israel keep her milk by letting the mother use her freezer when the hotel wouldn’t allow the mother the use of their freezer. Maybe you could see if there is a breastfeeding support group in the place you are going to who might have some ideas to help.

I believe that this mother used dry ice to help keep her milk frozen but this was back in the days before the latest airline security. Do you have a cooler bag with blue blocks to freeze? Many mothers I know use these cooler bags to keep their milk at work.

Best wishes,
SARAH
 
thank you all for the advice
Carang is rite, i'm trying to save the milk that i'll express during hte trip
so sarah, you think its ok if i chill the milk instead, I have a portable cooler (rubbermaid type) and cooler bags, I also have lots of blue blocks, do you think its ok if i keep them in teh fridge in the hotel and have them chilled and travel them back in those cooler?
 
i agree with carang that it is better to discard the milk than going through the hassle to preserve it. there is also a risk of the milk being contaminated. the key is the maintain your milk supply. so just pump during your trip.

u can also pump a little extra before travelling for your daughter. otherwise a few days on formula will not hurt your baby.

i have done that before.
 
thanks Sarah, i'll look closely into the info.
if it reli doesnt work, i'll just work on maintaining the supply then, carang
 
Feeding formular to breastfed baby

I just want to say that if you're thinking of giving formula to your breastfed baby while you're out of town, you might want to try and see if she would take any formula before you leave. When I started giving formula to my daughter, I found out that she is allergic to certain brands of formula and it took her a long time before she would take any formula. I had to mix the breast milk and formula. It's been more than 3 weeks now and she's still not drinking exclusive formula.

Grace
 
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