Stash questions

[IowaGold]

DD is 6 months old now. I both pump and feed directly. She only gets bottles when I am at work, but I produce quite a bit more than that so I have amassed a pretty decent freezer stash (about 1500 ounces and growing).

Question 1: I was attempting to rotate my stash by giving her a couple of bottles of frozen milk every day that I worked (the rest was fresh). I can't possibly rotate it fast enough. I'd take 2 out and put 4+ back in at the end of the day, so I've recently stopped rotating. It seemed silly to be feeding her milk I produced when she was 2-3 months old and put my milk that was freshly made for a 6 month old in the freezer. For those of you with large stashes, do/did you find a successful way of rotating?

Question 2: I have started to donate some of my milk. I'm trying to move out the oldest milk first. I'm not sure how much I can safely donate and feel that I have enough for DD "just in case". Right now I figure that were I to totally lose my milk, I could feed her strictly BM for around 6 weeks. If I stopped pumping but was still able to feed her when we were together, I have enough for 17 weeks of daycare. If my supply took a hit and what I could pump dropped by half, I'd barely have to dip into the freezer stash to give her what she needs for daycare (not sure if I'd have to feed her some bottles in addition to the direct feeding). How far down do you let your stash get? I'm kind of thinking along the lines of maybe once a month donating a month's worth of my oldest milk, keeping at least 3 months worth of milk on hand?

[katydid6952]

I EP and pump way more than dd2 needs. I started rotating out my freezer stash (or milk hoard as my df likes to call it lol) I'd rather feed her milk from when she was a month now than to do it when she is 6 months old. So I send 4 bags of the oldest milk from my freezer stash with her to daycare plus 1 bottle of milk from the last day or so from the fridge. At home she drinks bottles from the fridge or fresh.

[hohaas]

I make more than my DD4 eats. I use the oldest milk first and I donate the oldest first. Right now I have 850 oz in my deep freeze and I've donated 600 oz and DD4 is 3 mos. I'm def a breast milk hoarder and would still have it all if I had the freezer space for it. I'd keep what you're comfortable with. I want to have at least 200 oz on hand just in case.

[tamacha]

I read that frozen milk loses some antibodies and other good properties. I tried to find an "official" link but couldn't. Could you just feed your baby the fresh milk from the day before?

[IowaGold]

Originally Posted by tamacha I read that frozen milk loses some antibodies and other good properties. I tried to find an "official" link but couldn't. Could you just feed your baby the fresh milk from the day before?

That's what I'm doing now, but originally I was trying to rotate in some of the older frozen milk since it has a limited "shelf life". I just make too much milk to make it feasible the way I was trying to do it. I had hoped maybe someone had some brilliant different way of doing it. Now my way is just to use fresh milk and donate the oldest milk.