Feeding Time

Modern parenthood has a challenge or two, and among them is that those posed by keeping breast milk fresh and available for baby. Today, I thawed three bottles of breast milk as I needed them, trying to time their transition to a liquid state with the arrival of baby’s hunger. Throwing the bottles in the microwave is not allowed, as the miraculous enzymes of the milk have been shown not to survive the process. So, the suggestion from those in the know is to warm the breast milk under a warm tap. Of course, you don’t want to do that with a glass bottle (and the milk stores better in glass), as you’d risk the glass shattering. So, I put each bottle of frozen milk in a coffee mug of tepid water and allow more tepid water to course down from the faucet into the coffee mug for a few minutes. Once the milk is liquid, but still cold, I transfer it into the plastic baby bottle, which I put into the same coffee mug, but now I fill the mug with scalding water from the tap and let the tap replenish the hot water in the mug for a few minutes to expedite the heating process. Not infrequently, I’m singing distracting ditties to baby to keep her from wailing, as I get the milk ready. If a bottle is prepared and it turns out baby wasn’t hungry enough to drink it at that point, or in too much pain from teething, then there’s a risk of the bottle needing to be thrown out. For, again, breast milk (and especially certain women’s breast milk, it turns out) spoils quite a bit faster than cow’s milk and way, way faster than formula.

So, three, four or five times a day, my kitchen is the scene of a frenzied set piece that all but the most jaded onlooker would rightly conclude is suffused with love.