Milkies Milk Trays

We bought these trays a few weeks ago, shortly before the birth of our second child. For our oldest daughter, we always used the bags, which worked out fine, but we found ourselves wasting quite a bit of milk with those, plus they were quite expensive to purchase. Our youngest daughter is now a month old, and due to an oversupply issue, I had to pump pretty much right away. So, while I haven't used these for an incredible amount of time, I can definitely say these are well worth buying. PROS: - Cheaper than milk storage bags. To me, this is a huge pro considering with my over supply I could easily go through 3-4 bags a day while still nursing exclusively. We just freeze them, pop out the "milk sticks," then put them in a Ziploc and label the baggie, then throw it back in the freezer. Yes, the sticks to stick together a bit, but they come apart easily and don't break. - You can thaw just the right amount of milk. You can take a bag full of 8 milk sticks and only grab 4 and keep the rest frozen if needed. This cuts down on wasting milk. - You really only need to buy one set of trays unless you have quite an oversupply. That will allow you to freeze 16 oz at a time, which probably won't be needed for most women. At the most, I do 8 oz right now, so I have an entire tray left still. I think I will be purchasing an extra set for the purpose of donating since I have an oversupply. CONS: - It's a little difficult to tell where the 1 oz mark is, but I usually just estimated and tried to make them even. - They probably take up a little more room in the freezer than freezing the milk storage bags flat. - You can't fit more than a couple milk sticks in the smaller 4 oz bottles. We were only able to get about 3 in those bottles, so we often would use a separate cup or bottle (the larger 8 oz ones) to thaw 4 oz of milk. Not sure how to get around this just yet, but they are small enough to fit in the opening of pretty much any bottle. Yet, those little things don't make me rate these any lower than 5 stars. I highly recommend these for breastfeeding mothers, especially if you want to be economical.

Revised: okay. Nevermind. These are fantastic. I realized I was getting the milkcicles out wrong. It’s super easy to use and is a great portion size. Only downside is that these are plastic but they’re a great alternative to bags. Original: The size of the portions is nice but the hard plastic makes it difficult to get the milkcicles out. These are also very easy to spill even when not filled to the top. There are less expensive options that would work better in my opinion.

I bought this early postpartum to freeze the excess milk I was collecting during breastfeeding (using another of Milkies products that I still use- the milk saver). I like that this saves milk by the ounce so you can defrost the amount you need. I did have trouble spilling some of the milk if I didn’t lay it perfectly flat in the freezer. Maybe I overfilled certain sections even though there is a line? Also, the lid doesn’t securely attach to the tray so can easily come off. I am clumsy, so I’d spill milk almost every time (and anyone who breastfeeds knows that hurts). I would have liked to have a more secured/attached lid that would prevent leaks if the milk moved inside. I used rubber bands to help me prevent my clumsy spills. I have to say that it is easy to clean and the milk residue comes right off. When taking the milk out and transferring the sticks to a freezer bag, I would just twist the tray to loosen them like you would an ice cube tray. I haven’t found a good way to store the milk to not take up so much space though (a good problem to have). Now that my baby is older, I am back to using storage bags since she eats more and I can freeze them flat for less freezer space. I do like the idea of this and is good if you want to have the option of variable amounts of milk at a time.

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!!