Understanding the rules around breast and formula milk storage and shelf life can be confusing – in this post we hope to simplify it and provide a simple guide.
Whether you are making up formula or expressing breast milk general hygiene practices are important to ensure safe storage.
– Always wash your hands before expressing milk or making up formula.
-Ensure the tools and storage equipment have been cleaned and sterilised.
-Have labels to hand or create a system to note the date and time so that storage times can be calculated.
-Make sure containers used for storage are well sealed.
Safe storage times for breast and formula milk
Breast Milk
-Can be safely kept at room temperature for 4-6 hours.
If in doubt or for babies in NICU or experiencing ill health, stick to 4 hours.
-Can be safely kept refrigerated (at 4 degrees or less) for 5-7 days.
If you are unsure of your fridge temperature, store for 3 days max. Always store in the coolest part of the fridge, i.e. close to the back, avoid the door compartments.
-Can be safely frozen for up to 6 months.
-When thawing frozen breast milk you can thaw under warm water or slowly in the fridge. Once thawed, use within 2 hours if kept at room temperature or within 24 hours in the fridge. Don’t refreeze thawed breast milk.
Formula Milk
-The safest way to prepare formula feeds is to make them up fresh and feed when you need one. Follow the instructions on the formula pack and allow sufficient cooling time.
-Although not recommended, formula milk can be kept at room temperature for a maximum of 1-2 hours.
-If needed, prepared formula bottles can be stored in the fridge (at 4 degrees or less) for up to 24 hours.
-It is not recommended to freeze formula feeds.
Once baby has consumed some of a bottle (either breast or formula) it is safe at room temperature for 1 hour, after this it is best to discard remaining milk.
Is it safe to combine breast and formula milk in one bottle?
Yes, if done safely.
If you want to top up your bottle of expressed breast milk, you can add pre-made formula or you can make up a smaller amount of formula as normal and add to breast milk. Try to ensure they are a similar temperature, i.e. bring formula to room temperature before mixing with fresh expressed milk to avoid impacting the live components of breast milk and if refrigerating before feeding don’t add warm milk to cold milk as this will increase the temperature and impact the safe refrigeration timings.
When making powdered formula to mix with breast milk always ensure you follow the instructions on the pack and use the appropriate amount of water. Breast milk can not be used in replacement for water when making formula.
Combined bottles can be stored at room temp for maximum 1-2 hours (maximum 1 hour if baby has drunk from the bottle) and can be stored in the fridge for 24 hours.
