Travelling to Penang - Day 5

IT IS THE LAST DAY OF MY BUSINESS TRIP! Today is the day that will determine whether all my efforts for the past few days will go wasted or not.

In the morning, I wrapped the chilled milk in newspapers and then kept them in the polystyrene chiller box together with the well-frozen ice packs. I had 3 small ones and I always managed to keep the milk chilled for at least 5 hours when I went out for daily business visits. Usually the milk and ice packs were kept in the cooler bag. For this time, since the milk would have to be kept chilled for about 12 hours out of the fridge, I kept them in a polystyrene chiller box.

The weather seemed to know what I was up to and all day the weather was not hot at all. It rained heavily in the morning and then the sky remained cloudy until about 4pm when the sun showed her sunny rays. The chiller box was kept in the front passenger seat with the air conditioner blowing directly at it. I was not sure if that would help lengthen the life of the ice packs that were keeping the previous milk chilled, but somehow, it would be better than not keeping the external environment cool. 

Finally, I reached home after visiting 3 customers and a long 5 hours drive. Guess what? My chilled milk were still chilled and the ice packs were only about 80% molten! I managed to bring the milk back for my Little Jen! (*smile widely*)

Travelling to Penang - Day 3

Counting down, 3 more days, exactly 72 hours or less, I shall be home. This means I can keep expressed breast milk (EBM) chilled and then store them in the freezer once I reach home. No more throwing away all the good nutrients my Little Jen has been missing. I sterilise the equipments with boiling hot water and then  after pumping, I keep the EBM in the pre-stesterilized bags in the minibar.

Unfortunately, the minibar is not cold enough to freeze my molten ice packs. Thankfully, I have friends in Penang and my friends are kind enough to help. The ice packs are left at my friend's place to freeze and I shall collect them when we meet tomorrow night. Thanks a lot, buddies!

Travelling to Penang - Day 1

Finally at 9.30pm, I get to pump and release myself from engorgement. I have been nursing Little Jen only at night for about 2 months now and therefore, I am really surprised that I am still able to get about 10oz within 15 minutes of pumping.

Here comes the sad part, on the way here to Penang from KL, I kept my ice packs with 6 cans of Oldtown White Coffee in a polystyrene box. Along the way, I stopped in Batu Gajah and Chemor for customer visits. Had dinner along the way to my hotel on Penang island and by the time I checked into my hotel, the ice packed were all molten but the Oldtown White Coffee was still cold. This means if I freeze my expressed breast milk (EBM), they will not stay frozen for 12 hours until I reach home.

So, tonight and tomorrow morning's milk will have to go wasted. I have no way to bring them back (*sob*sob*).

I miss Little Jen so much! And, Hubby too of course. This is the longest time I am away from them since the boirth of Little Jen..

Little Jen on Formula Milk during day time

I had completely stopped nursing or expressing breast milk for Little Jen between 8am to 6pm in the evening since he was 8 and a half months old. He relied on the expressed breast milk stored in the fridge for more than a month and finally he finished the last pack. So, now, I am buying him S-26 formula milk for 6-12 months old.

During his stay in the nursery right on his first few days out of the womb, he was fed with that particular brand of milk. No allergies and discomfort. So, shall be buying that for him until he can take cow's milk which is A LOT MORE ECONOMICAL. One large can of S-26 only lasts him for less than 2 weeks, and mind you, he only takes formula milk between 8am to 6pm, which is about 4 feedings in total.

Good thing he was exclusively breastfed in the first 6 months and then continued with EBM during the day and nursing at night for the following 4 months. That is a lot of savings!

Breastfeeding at Work - Gadgets

Breastfeeding while working sure need some help in order to maintain supply.

I am using the following pump. It is a single electronic pump but in actual fact, it is a 3-in-1. Manual, electric and battery. I usually bring all out when I am outside so that I can pump manually if there is no electric point or use the battery if I am too lazy to pump manually.

Only the electronic parts i.e. the elctronic head and battery casings are kept in the bag shown above. I got the bag free by buying S-26 Mama milk powder and it is really useful and suitable to be used this way.

The rest of the parts including the baby bottles and manual pump will go into the bag below.

And for storage of the milk, I am using pre-sterilized bags as shown below. The benefit of using bags to store the milk instead of bottles is that it is more convenient. The bags are already pre-sterilised and so, you can just pour the milk directly into it and then prepare to be kept in the fridge or freezer. I used to label the bags with date, volume and time. Later, I became lazier and labeled only with the date and volume.

Labelling with dates is very important as that will give you an indication of the expiry date. Chilled milk can be kept in the fridge for up to 2 days and frozen milk can be kept up to 3 months.

When I am home, I will seal the bags using a heat sealer which is actually a really good investment. By heat sealing, you can leave the bags flat to freeze in the freezer compartment. Once frozen, you can keep them like the way you arrange books.

I kept the milk in this manner in separate plastic bags according to the month the milk was expressed. This is important so that we can keep track of the expiry date by batches since we do not want to throw any expried milk out, it will be such a waste.

When I am outstation, I will use cable tie to seal the bags. This is a cheaper option but may take up a lot of freezer space.

Ice packs are must-have necessity especially since I am doing Marketing and I can spend whole 8 hours out of house or office. This is to keep the milk chilled until I am able to store them in the fridge or freezer.

For hygiene purpose, I have a separate scissors for cutting and slitting when the need arises i.e. to separate the pieces of bags and to cut open any milk storage bags.



Oh, last piece of advise - Always store the milk in 2-3oz and nothing more! I had so many stored in 5-oz quantity cause I wanted to save on the milk storage bags.

My son rarely take 5-oz at one-go and I had no choice but to throw the balance as thawed milk must be consumed within an hour and cannot be frozen again for storage.  

Do not mix Cereal with Breast Milk

Thank Lord, Little Jen recovered the next day after he had fever which caused him to vomit badly. He vomited less and was more himself already the next day - The Little Rascal.

During our visit to the Doctor, he was asking on what Little Jen took the day before and said that he could already take cereal or porridege since he was already 6 months old. I told the Doctor that Little Jen had been taking a spoon or two of rice cereal for the past 2-3 weeks to give him a taste of solid food. Then he wanted to know if we added milk or water for the cereal. I told him that I added breast milk to the cereal because heard that breast milk contained some enzymes to help him digest the cereal. Doctor advised to add formula milk instead of breast milk as breast milk was too nutritious to be wasted as a diluent for the cereals.

The addition of breast milk to the cereal was said to be a waste as the baby will then absorb nutrient from the cereal instead of the milk, thus, wasting the milk's nutrients.

Since Little Jen is healthy again, I have resumed giving him rice cereals. This time with milk or just water. He seems to be eagerly waiting for this time of the day when he is to take his cereal. The amount has increased from 1 to 3 tablespoons. Soon, will introduce him new solid foods.