Baby Refusing Frozen Milk

Smell the milk after it is thawed!!! I had a lipase build up in my milk that, when frozen, caused it to sour. No joke. When I finally smelled the milk he was refusing to drink, I was horrified and felt terrible. The Medela website will tell you to scald (I think) the milk to stop the chemical reaction process. After you have followed the steps (I let the milk build up in the fridge for two days first to have enough not to sour the milk on the stove) and freeze it, this should stop.

Another reason milk spoils in the freezer is the new self defroster freezers, due to the freeze/thaw cycles it uses to keep the freezer/deep freeze frost free. If you have one, make sure the milk is not near any of the sides (or the doors that get opened and shut often) or bottom because when it heats up keep the frost away, it can be just enough to start thawing and refreezing your milk over and over.

Of course, it could also be the bottle or nipple. I just know for us, it was sour breastmilk, which as a first time mom, never had crossed my mind.

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Tell your husband to stop serving milk-cicles. :) Lol

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Does your little one normally take breastmilk from the bottle?
My kiddos only liked only warm breastmilk. Maybe your dh could warm the milk to the temp similar to freshly expressed one ? :)
Or you could try different bottles (tommee tippee is the one my little one liked to take but I had to make sure that my breastmilk was warm not luke warm).
Good luck!

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It'll be an adjustment. Is today the first day he's ever had a bottle? Try a different flow nipple. Try a different shaped nipple (I used Medela's). Another thought is that your milk tastes different. Perhaps when you pumped it, you had eaten a lot of broccili that day, so the milk has that gassiness to it. Or you ate a jalepeno burger that day, so the milk may just taste off for the baby. You know what I'm saying? - what you eat affects the taste of your milk. So try seeing if baby will take a bottle that you just pumped. Or a fresher bag of frozen milk.

My 9 mo drinks fresh milk from a bottle with minimals fuss, but he's not a fan of frozen either. To me it smells different so I'm sure it tastes different too. If you keep your frozen in the back of the freezer you only have to rotate the supply every three months or so. That way you can use the stuff you pump the previous day most of the time and just keep the frozen for when extra is needed or emergencies.

My youngest wouldn't take breast milk from a bottle, only formula to my dismay! Guess she was just smart enough to know that the good stuff isn't supposed to come from a fake nipple!

I had the same problem as Missouri MK: my frozen-then-thawed breastmilk smelled awful when it was warmed up - really, it smelled like vomit. I was horrified. He would drink it cold, but not warmed up. Freshly pumped milk that was refrigerated and re-warmed was no problem (and he only liked it REALLY warm, not lukewarm).

If today was your first day back and baby is simply adjusting to your absence, it will probably solve itself. Your baby will eat when he gets hungry enough. But smell your thawed, re-warmed milk to see if the lipase build-up is the problem.

Try a different bottle. My daughter liked the Medela ones (plus that is the pump I had). If I remember correctly my daughter did not like Playtex till she was about 5 months, so at that time I switched from Medela to Playtex (but at that time I had switched from breast to formula because she was lactose sensitive). Since you just returned to work it may take time for your little guy to adjust to the switch, so give it time (about a week, maybe to adjust).

Does he warm it up or just let it unthaw in the fridge? My daughter HATED cold breastmilk or formula. I had to always warm it up, it had to be at least room temp or a little warmer then room temp (just like out of the breast). What I did was test how warm the breastmilk came out and tried to get close to that temp from the bottle, that made the biggest differance for my daughter.

Lastly I only froze if I was not going to use it within 24 hours... I really tried to always use fresh from the fridge (warmed). This may sound weird but taste your fresh breastmilk and then taste it from frozen, mine tasted completely different so understandable why my little one liked fresh instead of frozen.

One of my friends had this problem when she stored her milk in plastic bottles, so she switched to glass bottles (easy to find online) and never had anymore problems.

Before you go and spend money on different bottles and nipples, make sure it is the right temp for your little one. My son will only drink from the bottle if it is very warm. If it's lukewarm, we get a face and he pushes the bottle right out of his mouth. After we warmed it a little more, he takes it with no troubles. Our bottle warmer wasn't very accurate (you put in water to the line for however many ounces, it didn't actually work that way).

Make sure the milk is very warm, first, before you switch bottles or nipples. I tried a half dozen different ones and it made no difference.

My daughter went without drinking anything from a bottle for six hours a day for four weeks when she started daycare. She was happy and healthy, just stubborn. She waited for mom. On the Monday of the fifth week, she drank 7 oz from a bottle and the strike was over.

Try another one. My DD liked Medela, and other kids like Brestflow or Tommee Tippy.

If you are freezing daily, you don't have to. Use fresh whenever possible.

Kellymom.com has more info.

ive had this problem with 2/3 kids. it seems that it was freezer burn in the milk. I guess i didnt seal it properly? What i began doing is just keeping the fresh milk from the day before in the fridge, and give it to them the next day when iw as gone. if you have to freeze make sure u get all the air out and seal it tight. also it could be the temp of the milk, make sure he is heating it all the way through.

The bottle feels differently that the nipple. He may just take some time to get used to it.