Breast Milk Storage

Even though I stay at home with William and don't have a huge need to have a supply of breast milk built up in our freezer, I've still pumped enough to have a small stash so that Darrell and I can get away for an evening if we want to (or if I have to go on some medication that prevents William from nursing). However, since we aren't constantly using it, storing it was a little bit of a pain, especially since whenever we did want to pull some out we wanted to make sure we were using the oldest milk. So, with a little resourcefulness, we built our own storage container/dispenser, which will always ensure that the milk we grab is the oldest, plus it will keep it organized in our freezer. And guess what? I even remembered to take pictures of the process! They're like the crappiest pictures ever because I was too lazy to make sure I had good lighting, but I suppose they are better than nothing.

One of the best parts of this project? I didn't have to buy anything for it and it took me less than thirty minutes to complete. Of course, if you aren't a nursing mother, this craft probably isn't very useful, but maybe you can be creative and find something to do with it besides storing breast milk ;)

Supplies Used:

A shoe box that is the size of your breast milk bags (or slightly larger)
Duct tape
Box cutter or small knives to cut through the cardboard
And obviously frozen breast milk (which I opted not to include in the picture--if you don't know what it looks like then you probably don't care about what it looks like)

Step One:

Cut a piece out of the bottom of the lid. This is where you will dispense the milk from.

Step Two:

Cut off the other end of the box. You will put the milk into the box from this end.

Step Three:

Tape the lid to the rest of the shoe box (you could probably tape the lid on first, but I figured it would be easier to do the cutting without the lid attached).

Step Four:

Fill with milk!

Now, whenever I pump, I can just put the bag in at the top, and whenever we need milk I can just pull it out from the bottom and I know that it will be the oldest stuff. Not too shabby for a mere thirty minute investment of my time!