My Picky Eaters

Erin and Will are getting a 50/50 mix in their bottles.  They get 50% formula (for the calories) and 50% breast milk.  I've been pumping non-stop (at least it feels that way) since they were born. It was one of the only things that I could do for them during the early days in the hospital.  I built up a nice stockpile of milk.  You'll notice in the first picture that the freezer it completely full of milk. It is a great problem to have. The bad problem is that Will (and sometimes Erin) will not drink milk that has been frozen.  He spits out the bottle, arches, gags and basically acts like we are putting poison in his mouth.  I was at a loss for what to do with my picky eater.  I did some research and found out that "A few mothers find that their refrigerated or frozen milk begins to smell or taste soapy, sour, or even rancid soon after it's stored, even though all storage guidelines have been followed closely. Per Lawrence & Lawrence (p. 781), the speculation is that these mothers have an excess of the enzyme lipase in their milk, which begins to break down the milk fat soon after the milk is expressed. Most babies do not mind a mild change in taste, and the milk is not harmful, but the stronger the taste the more likely that baby will reject it."    http://www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/lipase-expressedmilk.html  BINGO! This must be the problem.
 The freezer is full and the kids won't drink the frozen milk. I am still producing enough milk to sustain them if the weren't getting any formula.  I decided to donate some milk to the Milk Bank in Kalamazoo, MI. They sent me the coolers, storage bottles (to replace the ones I would be sending to them) and the UPS shipping labels.  All I had to do was fill up the coolers and drop them off at the UPS store (after some routine blood work and paper work was complete). So far I have donated almost 1100 ounces of frozen milk.  I learned about a method of scalding the milk before freezing it. I have started to do this and Will has drank this frozen milk without any problems.  I am glad to find a way to make all of us happy.  (If any of you breastfeeding moms out there have any other suggestions of how to help my picky eaters, please let me know.)

The freezer before I sent two coolers of milk to the Milk Bank.

46 bottles of 8-10 ounces of milk per bottle, per cooler

The freezer after the coolers were packed.

A few days of extra milk.

Scalding the milk (bringing the milk to 180' before freezing it)

My assembly line.

The finished product of scalded milk. Each of these bottles holds 4 ounces of milk and fits nicely into our freezer.