LightTag Uses: Breastmilk Tracking 👩‍🍼

This one’s for you, new mama! If you don’t fit the category, you probably know someone who does, so share the love and share this info because we’re here to help all of those parents in the haze of exhaustion and being overwhelmed by welcoming that new baby into their home.

We created LightTags to add that little bit of help with tracking food– keeping it fresh and making sure that you’re not eating something past prime. And we do that by tracking time and giving you the handy visual reminder of a light system that’s based on a stoplight. Teal– still good. Yellow– last day. Red– out of time.

This particular means of tracking is extra essential when you’re caring for the more vulnerable of our world, like our youngest and oldest. Today we’re sharing how easy (and revolutionary!) tracking breastmilk with LightTags can be. 

Breastmilk storage basics

Following the 4-4-4 rule, we know that fresh breastmilk is fresh for

• 4 hours on the counter
• 4 days in the fridge
• 4 months in the fridge

That rule of thumb, while widely adopted as the standard, may differ in your family– and that’s okay. Our LightTags are programmable and you can change the number of days you’re tracking at any time. For our example today, we’ll go with this 4-4-4 rule.

The Tape & Marker Tracking Method

If you’re pumping storing milk in separate containers in the fridge, you’re likely following the FIFO (First In, First Out) method by using some system similar to tape and marker. The constantly repeating practice goes that you pump, then prep the milk to be saved for later and write the date you pumped on the container and it goes into the fridge. 

Some of you are putting those into organizers, and some of you are finding an open spot in your packed refrigerator (that no one has time to organize or clean out). Even with great intentions of putting milk at the front so you see it (or back behind another bottle), you often find yourself opening the fridge and not knowing which one to use when baby’s crying and wanting to be fed, so you’re frantically reading tops of bottles to find the oldest while also calculating how much baby needs and if you need to freeze any of these before they go bad…

In another common scenario, it’s your partner, parent or nanny that’s looking for the bottle to use– calling you to ask which is the right one or trying to decipher your frantically scrawled date you wrote. 

Sound familiar?

Now let’s contrast that with how LightTags can help.

The LightTag Tracking Method

If you were using LightTags, you’d simply press the button on top 4 times (once per day you want the milk tracked) and put it in the fridge. 

Every time the fridge opened for the first 3 days, the Tag would light up teal– telling you that it’s still good. When the milk is entering the last day of tracking, the light turns yellow. It’ll be yellow for every time you open the fridge– every time you feed baby. 

With LightTags tracking breastmilk, your partner, parent or nanny knows to use the yellow one first– and the teal if there isn’t one that’s yellow. (#usetheyellow) 

You also know that if there are a few that are yellow, and you’re not going to use them up that day, that it’s time to freeze some (winning!)

What this method doesn’t allow for… don’t let this stress you out. :)

We’re grouping milk essentially into 3 categories vs by individual days. The categories with this method are:

• Fresher (teal light) 🩵💚
• Use today (yellow light) 💛
• Out of time (red light) ❤️

 

This creates a really easy shorthand and relieves the stress of having to dig through the fridge and remember what day it is (no judgement—this can be really hard when you’re overtired and overwhelmed… we’ve been there!)

What else you should consider

• Adding this shorthand into your fridge helps ensure anyone that’s helping care for baby knows what to use quickly and easily.
  
• It’s great for working mamas who are bringing 3-4 bottles back home and putting them in the fridge for yourself and caretakers each evening.
• We recommend a 6 tag set as the base for starting this method since you’re most likely pumping multiple times a day
• Make sure you have some extra batteries on hand (they need a standard CR2450 coin cell). They’re designed to last several months, but there will be a day that you go to set a Tag and won’t hold the program—that’s the indicator that it’s time to change the battery.
• LightTags can easily be used on any other food or perishable you want to ensure is fresh—so is easy to transition to purees, pouches, cereal or even your leftovers or wine.

 

We know parenting can be overwhelming and wonderful and hard all wrapped up into one and want to help take a little bit of that burden off by making your tracking easier. 🤍