do I really need: thermal tote/cooler bag?

good day ladies....

I am working hard on my registry and I was wondering if you ladies used the thermal totes and/or bottle cooler bags? I probably would like something that goes into a diaper bag.
do the thermal bags only keep warm or can you keep cool in them too? same for the cooling bag?

I am just wondering if I should register for something like that....I am planning on breastfeeding, then add pumping and freezing milk, for DH feeding and helpers, etc.

not sure once you go out with babies if you bring the cold breastmilk out of the fridge/freezer or fresh warm breastmilk....ah the logistics!

any tips are appreciated, thank you.

happy holidays!
alexa

 

I didn't BF (much), and we also didn't go out that much, but I still always wished we had a better thermal bag for bottles. We used the diaper bag we got from the hospital, which had an insulated compartment, but it was barely big enough for 2 bottles. IMO, if you are going to use bottles at all (even for breastmilk), it would be useful to have a removable bag that could hold at least 2 bottles.

A thermal bag can keep things warm as well as cool -- it just inhibits heat transfer from inside the bag to outside of it. So the stuff inside stays closer to whatever temperature it started at. If you are using it to keep things cool, and you have a removable bag (as opposed to a compartment in the diaper bag), you can put the whole bag in the fridge before you go, and it will work even better.

As far as going out -- the easiest thing is just to BF on the go! But if that's not possible, you can bring fresh warm breastmilk if you're going to use it within a few hours. (I'm not sure what the # of hours is, but kellymom.com could tell you.) And if you need to keep it longer, you bring cold (or frozen) milk and warm it up when you're ready to feed.

 

I have a very nice little insulated bag that came with my breastpump. I use it for all my expressed milk. It keeps hot or cold, although I always put an ice pack (it came with..) and keep it cold.

 

I had the same thing that Mandyfish3 did, so I didn't buy a separate one. Mine came with my Medela Pump-In-Style Advanced pump.

Erica.

 

I would suggest getting one. I am looking for a good one now. I breastfeed DS and formula feed DD. Well her formula is the liquid soy milk so it has to stay cold. Right now I am using a huge lunch box type cooler with an ice pack and it is just not working that well. I also put breastmilk in there if DS is going to need it but mostly it is easier to just breastfeed him wihile out instead of give him a bottle.

 

I'd wait until they're born and see what your needs really are. One of the many conveniences of BFing is that you can do it anywhere, anytime, with nothing to bring/heat/keep cold/wash up. And you don't have to tandem nurse in public - you can do one at a time and nobody will even notice.

Also, you may find once the babies are born that it is very, very, VERY hard to get out the door with two babies. So you may not be doing a whole lot of swanning about anyway!

 

I used a thermal bag a lot, but I had a bunch that were "freebies". I had a great one that came with my pump (which I had to buy my pump of course). Then the doctors office, NICU, and pedi's office gave me those free black diaper bags and several of those came with a thermal tote.

So I definitely used one, but I don't know that I'd register for one because you are definitely going to end up with a couple.

 

I've used the bags just to bring bottled BM with me. The BM we fee them is kept at room temp, so we don't have to keep it cold. However if we decided to thaw our BM, then a tote would work b/c we can keep thawed refrigerated for 24 hours. Here's Le Leche League standards are for pumped milk and what I'm referring to:

Storage Guidelines
Storing milk in 2-4 ounce amounts may reduce waste. Refrigerated milk has more anti-infective properties than frozen milk. Cool milk in refrigerator before adding to frozen milk.

Human milk can be stored

at room temperature (66-72°F, 19-22°C) for up to 10 hours
in a refrigerator (32-39°F, 0-4°C) for up to 8 days
in a freezer compartment inside a refrigerator (variable temperature due to the door opening frequently) for up to 2 weeks
in a freezer compartment with a separate door (variable temperature due to the door opening frequently) for up to 3 to 4 months.
in a separate deep freeze (0°F, -19°C) for up to 6 months or longer.

 

I nurse now and I dont pump or carry bottles and have never had a reason for either. I think I am pretty lucky in that respect. I bottle/formula fed my DD and I never used one either. I never premixed my formula, just take good water at room temp and the formula you will need, mix it right before you use it. I never needed to keep anything warm either, if you are doing baby food most places will have a microwave you can borrow if the need be, and most babies will eat room temp baby food.

 

QUOTE(fuchsiagroan @ Dec 21 2007, 09:03 PM) [snapback]543382[/snapback]
I'd wait until they're born and see what your needs really are. One of the many conveniences of BFing is that you can do it anywhere, anytime, with nothing to bring/heat/keep cold/wash up. And you don't have to tandem nurse in public - you can do one at a time and nobody will even notice.

Also, you may find once the babies are born that it is very, very, VERY hard to get out the door with two babies. So you may not be doing a whole lot of swanning about anyway!



Now we get out of the house quite a bit, we have too with five kids (actually I am alone and out about 80% of the time). Anyway I tandem nurse in the back of the car or nurse one at a time if I have another adult with me. BF is so convenient. I still had no use for them, and as a PP said you will get several at the hospital inside the freebie diaperbags they give you.

 

I got one of those that you put the ice/hot pack in the top, then it has like a foil liner type thing.
I never used it for hot but I did use it with ice packs mostly to take a couple of bottles upstairs with me at night to feed Josh in the middle of the night. I had to use 2 ice packs sitting in the bottom with the actual milk. It seemed to do all just fine for that. So for that long I am sure it would be ok on an outing.
When I have done hot in the past, I never used a hot pack I always just wrapped the bottle up, hot, and didn't put anything cold next to it. Then it would at least be room temp by the time they wanted it.