These guidelines for storing and warming milk are for healthy term infants. Please check your hospital’s information on breast milk storage for babies who are sick or in the NICU.
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How long you can store milk
If you look up timeframes for storing breast milk, you’ll find a range. To keep this simple and easy to remember, we use the middle of the range. - Room temp (66 to 77°F): Four hours (freshly expressed breast milk)
- In refrigerator (39°F):
- Four days (freshly expressed breast milk)
- 4 hours (thawed milk from freezer)
- In freezer (one with its own door) (0°F): Six months is best, but up to 12 is acceptable.
- In cooler with ice packs (59°F): 24 hours.
- Leftover from feeding: Use within two hours of baby finishing feed.
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Mixing milk expressed the same day
- You may want to mix milk expressed the same day but from different pump sessions.
- To do this, you must bring them to the same temp before mixing.
- For example: You can add fresh expressed milk to milk in the refrigerator once they have been cooled to the same temp.
- Breast milk contains live cells. To keep those cells and their benefits, you must get milk to the same temp before mixing.
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Warming milk
- To warm it, use warm water or a breast milk warmer.
- Don’t microwave breast milk. This could burn baby’s mouth, and it kills the live cells in breastmilk.
- Don’t heat breast milk on the stove.
- To thaw frozen breast milk:
- Let it thaw in the refrigerator.
- Place container of breast milk under running water. Start the water cool and slowly warm it.
- It must be used within 24 hours of thawing.
- Cream rises to the top when breast milk is stored. Gently swirl milk (no shaking) to combine.
- If frozen milk is still “slushy,” you can refreeze it.
- Throw away any warmed milk baby does not take after one hour.