How much of a "stash" to keep?

[CallMeMommy]

I've got a freezer full of milk I'm thinking of offering up on Eats on Feets, but I'm wondering how much to keep back for myself.  I WOH full-time and am currently pumping more than he's eating at daycare (ah, reverse cycling...) and have no plans to be away from him anytime soon for any length of time.  What's a good baseline?

[kanga1622]

Just to give you another perspective, I was thinking about doing the same thing and then randomly came down with a raging case of mastitis. My supply took a big dip and is slowly recovering so I've been very happy that we had a huge freezer stash to go to. DS is still getting one bottle from the freezer a day while my supply comes back to normal since I can't pump enough for him right now to send to daycare.

I don't think I would be comfortable going any lower than 99 ounces which would be 33 bottles for DS. That should get us through any hurdles and give me time to help get my supply back up. In the event that we were unable to nurse at all, I think he could get through about 4 days on that amount of freezer stash.

[patronus]

i'm in a similar situation to you (woh & pumping more than dd consumes) and i'd keep about 200-300oz on hand. i've already donated 2 gallons to the milk bank.

i will add this, however: go back into your stash and test thaw & feed your lo some of your frozen milk. i never had a lipase issue with my fresh milk but after thawing from my stash for the first time ever (dd is 10 months) i discovered that it tasted soapy and she didn't take it well at all. if i had known, i might have scalded it to avoid this issue. my plan was to use my freezer stash to send with dd to childcare past 1 year to delay her going on cow's milk. now that she won't take it, i'll probably just donate the whole freezer stash.

[CallMeMommy]

Well I'm covered there, I know I have excess lipase and already scald.  I guess I'll build up the stash a little more before giving any away.  Thanks!