Breast Milk Storage Log

As a first time mama, I struggled tremendously to produce enough supply for my little. I followed my lactation specialist’s advice to the last detail. I put my daughter onto my breast every 2ish hours and followed-up with a pump session on each side for 15 minutes.

For the first month, this equaled 6 to 9 pump sessions per day. By the 2nd and 3rd month, my milk was coming in and strong. From month 4 and on, I continued to pump 3-4 times a day, beucase I planned to go back to work at the time and wanted to create a stash.

Through this exhausting breast pumping journey, organization of my stash became a real struggle. It took a lot of active thinking and work to make it easy for my husband to use the oldest bag first and mind the expiration windows. We wanted to maximize every drop of breast milk. My husband was super man and would bottle feed regularly the first few weeks so I could get 2-4 hours of sleep.

We seemingly had a constant flow of milk going in and out of the freezer. We went through a ton of methods to organize, but the only one that really stuck was this traditional, simple paper log that I put up on the freezer door (Breast Milk Storage Log). I needed a log that let me quickly and easily add, cross out, and read on the fly. I think this log is it. I simplified and refined the log with my second child.

One thing that I added with my second was the “Notes” column. Because we have a toddler, new germs and colds constantly pass through our household. So, in the first few months, we went through COVID-19, winter colds, allergies, and the common “who-knows-what” colds. I used the notes field to add comments about my kids’ health. Iknew when my youngest would show signs of a cold, I could go back in and grab the breast milk bag that I pumped when I was sick before. Then I could give that to my kids for added antibodies. COVID breast milk was great, because I could give it to both kids any time we may be exposed again to try to boost their immune systems before more exposure.

I hope this log finds a comfy place on your fridge or freezer and can save you some headache!

If you use this log and love it, please come back and comment or tag me on one of my instagram posts. See you next time!