Answers to "How do I ship my BM to a recipient?"

Some one asked me how I ship milk to another mom, so I'm posting my answer here for others to see. Below (inbetween the dashed lines) is the information I usually send an interested recipient, making sure they understand my intentions. Below that is a little about how I do the prepping, packing, and shipping on my end.

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My preferences are the recipient covers the cost of the shipping package, reusable ice packs (I don't want to do dry ice), the shipping itself, and provide BM Storage Bag replacement/reimbursement. Here is what I recommend we do, as it's worked great for me in the past multiple times.

The website below has kits for sale that include the shipping cardboard box, the Styrofoam inside box, and ice packs (HDR type), all which are reusable. And if you call the company to order it, they can ship it directly to me and bill you; they do overnight shipping too (if you are interested or that desperate) so I can get it the very next day. This is much cheaper for you since it's reusable and the package is designed for this.

http://www.dryicepacks.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=36

Based on my frozen 4oz and 6oz bags of BM, the medium sized shipping kit from the website above holds around 200 oz of frozen BM with the ice pack. I could send you that much right now, shipped overnight and you could be using it in a few days.

As for the shipper, you choose (I've used UPS with great success) and call them to make sure overnight delivery is available in your area. Then, you set-up an account with them billable to you, put me as an authorized shipper for 'Next Day Air Overnight' service, and send me the account number. Then when I drop off the package at the shipper's location, I put your account number and address on it and everything else is taken care of.

You don't have to use these vendors or supplies if you found something else, its just to give you an option and an idea of what I've used safely and confidently. If you prefer to include the BM storage bag replacements in the empty box when returning it to me after our first exchange, that’s fine … or you can buy them from Amazon and have them sent directly to me instead. And as for my health if you're interested, I passed all the criteria to donate to a milk bank before and am currently in a long-term BM exchange with another recipient that is working out well.

If you are still interested, please let me know.

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Like I said, above is what I send to the recipient. For what I do for the stuff on my end, below is a summary --- it's not too time consuming.

PREPING THE SHIPPING BOX STUFF: After I give the recipient my mailing address, I get the shipping box/ice packs they bought in the mail. The box is a cardboard box with a Styrofoam box inside with the unused ice packs. The ice packs are flat like a sheet of paper before they've been used and there are instructions that come with the kit on how to make them work. I do the ice packs as soon as I get the package in the mail, since they don’t come frozen. (Doing the HDR ice packs is easy, here's the short version...soak the ice pack papers in water and for minimum 1 hour, squish and work the bubbles out of the ice pack sacks multiple times during the soaking, dry off the water-filled ice packs, place them in the deep freezer on flat surface to freeze, freeze minimum 24 hours but 2-4 days for best results.)

WHEN TO SEND THE BOX BACK: Depending on how desperate the recipient is, I will send the milk-filled package back to the recipient the very next day (giving the ice packs only the minimum 24hrs in the freezer) or the next few days after (giving the ice packs more time to freeze).

PACKING THE BOX: When I pack the milk in the box, I put a plastic garbage bag in the Styrofoam box first (in case of leaks), and then all the frozen milk bags, and then a layer of the ice pack, and then close the plastic bag around all that, then put the Styrofoam lid on, tap shut, then close the cardboard box and tape shut. You can wrap the box in the brown mailing paper after the first use to cover up older mailing markings and stuff --- if you do, be sure you write “PERISHABLE” on the brown paper in several areas.

MAILING THE BOX: For UPS, you don’t need to put an address on the box, but instead need to complete a “Next Day Air Shipping Weigh Bill”, an old-school triplicate form that has the addresses, the account numbers, a tracking number, etc.. (You can pick these up from the shipping store in bulk and have them filled out prior to dropping the box off.) For the weigh bill form, fill out as much as you can, omit the shipper’s account number and instead fill out the receiver’s/third party’s account number, and omit the weight. When I drop it off at the UPS store, they weigh the box, put the rest of the required info on the weigh bill form, and hand me a receipt – and they take care of everything else. (The UPS store I go to was kind enough to tell me that if I call ahead to let them know, they will meet me in the parking lot to take the box from my car, and then come back and give me the receipt so I didn’t have to unload my two kids from the car to drop-off the box…most convenient!) I only ship Monday through Thursday, and have to drop-off the box by 6pm for my local UPS shipping store.

AFTER MAILING: I usually text the recipient the UPS tracking number and confirm they received it the next day. Depending on the recipient’s delivery area, they may get it in the morning, by noon, or by 5pm. When they confirm receipt, I tell them to send me the box back cheapest method and I will hold it until they need another shipment.

Alright, that’s everything I think. Let me know if you have any questions.

U can also send the to modern milksharing....videos ;-) WWW.modernmilksharing.com