Milkies Fairhaven Health Milk Tray with Lid, Breastmilk Freezer Organization, 1 Ounce Sticks, Set of 2, Reusable, BPA and Silicone Free Containers, Freeze Your Baby Food

I am an under supplier and if I can save as much milk as I can I will. When I freeze my milk I don’t freeze one ounce at a time since I would go through a lot of bags. Instead I freeze 4, 5, or 6oz. Whatever I could pump and freeze. Once you thaw frozen breast milk you can’t refresh it so you have to use it all and would cause 1 or 2 ounces to be wasted when the baby wouldn’t eat all of what was thawed. When you’re an undersupplier every ounce you can save makes a huge difference. I recommend and give thumbs up for the Milkies. The only negative thing I don’t like about them is that it isn’t easy to get them out when you need two hands to twist the tray and once you let one hand loose it falls back in the tray. Making it hard to grab the one ounce bar. Also, the 1 ounce measurement does not match my ounce on my Medela breast pumping bottles. What I do to counteract this difference in the ounce is I pour one ounce from the Medela bottle into the bar slot and just watch how much comes out from my Medela bottle to make sure it’s as accurate as possible. If I have 5 ounces in my Medela bottle I pumped I will count out 5 bar slots on the Milkies to make sure I have 5 (1 oz bars). To make sure I freeze all the bars for that specific date I pumped my milk I just use masking tape and write with a sharpie on the lid of the bars which dates go for which bars. Then I take the frozen bars and store them in my Medela or Lanisoh breast milk bags. I can get about 4 bars in one bag to freeze. After putting them in the bags I thaw out one ounce at a time in the bottle for the baby! Other than these couple dislikes I still recommend and would use it over and over again!!

I love these trays and the convenience of freezing in 1 ounce portions! I predominantly use the fresh milk I pump each day to put in my daughter's bottles for daycare the next day, but sometimes I'm a bit short (particularly towards the end of the week when pumping yields less or if she's going through a growth spurt and is extra hungry) of what she usually eats, so I need to top off the bottles with just an ounce or two from my freezer stash.Here are some additional observations I've made about this product:-It takes a steady hand and some patience to fill exactly to the fill line. Sometimes I'm not exact and when thawed I get slightly more than an ounce, but the margin of error isn't significant.-If you have shaky hands, it is difficult to transfer the tray to the freezer without spilling some, but I'm not sure any sort of tray wouldn't have this same problem. I'm just really careful and take my time and I've gotten really good at not spilling. If you have a larger freezer space, you may even be able to fill the trays in the freezer to avoid the transfer.-The cubes are too tall to fit into the bottles that I use, the Lansinoh Momma 5 ounce bottles, which are kind of short and wide. As an alternative, I thaw the sticks in a tall glass jar in the refrigerator instead and then pour that into the bottle.-At first I had trouble popping the sticks out of the trays like some other users until I figured out the trick to getting them out. Holding the tray upside down over the lid, I place the four non-thumb fingers from each hand on the edges on the underside of the tray on either side of the stick I'm pushing out. I push down with my thumbs on the top side out towards the edges of each stick (not in the middle of the stick). The underside fingers act to slightly bend the tray upwards while the thumbs push down to pop the stick out. It takes a little bit of muscle from your thumbs but you don't need to be a body builder.-I love that I don't have to buy a bunch of special bags. I use smaller freezer bags to put the sticks in, and then I place those bags in a gallon size freezer bag to act as a double-bag to prevent freezer burn and also to bunch together all of the smaller bags.

I don’t freeze in this very regularly, but it’s really handy when I do because I can easily pull out a half-ounce or 1-ounce stick and use it to easily supplement a bottle that’s a little short. I pop it in the bottle with the cold milk and let it thaw overnight. Pretty easy to dislodge bars from the trays- leave lid on, flip the whole thing over. Bend/twist it a bit to loosen the bars.Biggest con: it’s kind of a pain to clean, and you have to hand wash it.Also: even though I only fill them to the full line, milk seems to spill/leak out a bit, so you have to be super careful transporting them to the freezer and usually they spill a little bit in the freezer.

So what I enjoy about these is that I can easily save gallon-sized bags of 1 oz breast milk ice cubes. It's great in the summer, especially with a baby that prefers ice cold milk. You can also use it to freeze other things as well. It helps if you only have a little bit of milk left over that you don't want to put into a freezer bag for saving breast milk as well.I will say as an overproducer that I was not able to save all of my milk in these ice cubes, but the cubes are so much easier than trying to defrost milk and get the fat to melt off the sides of a bag or trying to pour out the very last drop.I would recommend these two all mama's who are trying to save breast milk. It is so easy to just pull out a cube or two when I need it and pop it into the baby's bottle. For the ones that I saved in the deep freezer, I put them into a gallon size freezer bag and then put another gallon size freezer bag over it and seal them both to avoid any freezer burn.This to me, is a breastfeeding essential.The only con that I have is that as an overproducer there's not enough room for all the milk but that is not the products fault.

The lid sets on top, doesn't latch, so you have to be very careful in storing as it will spill easily. It is durable and easy to clean.