Milkloft for daycare and caregivers
The hard part of daycare is not the pumping, it is the handover: which bags go today, in what order they should be used, how they get warmed, and what happens to what comes back. Milkloft prepares that side of it, and the person caring for your baby never installs anything. They get a labelled bag and, if you want, one sheet of paper.
In short
Every use-by date is an estimate from the guideline you chose. Centres have their own rules; ask yours.
A day with Milkloft
- The night before, you know what to send The app puts your bags in use-first order and names the ones that cover tomorrow, so packing is reading a list rather than digging through frost.
- Each bag carries its own label Name, date, amount, estimated use-by and a four-letter code, printed rather than handwritten in marker that smudges in the freezer.
- The label does the explaining Name, date, amount and the estimated use-by are printed in plain text, so the person feeding your baby reads them at a glance. The QR is for you: scan it in Milkloft when the bag comes home to mark it used in one tap.
- What comes back gets closed out Mark a bag used, and the totals and the next-bag answer update. The bottle that came back half full has its own clock, which the app counts from the start of the feed.
What you get, and what Pro adds
| Free | Pro · one purchase | |
|---|---|---|
| QR labels & scan-to-action | ||
| Inventory, statuses & FIFO “use this first” | ||
| Expiration estimates from cited guidelines | ||
| Cooler mode (24 h window, Lock Screen countdown) | ||
| Printable caregiver handoff sheet (PDF) | – | |
| Outing planner (“what do I leave the sitter?”) | – | |
| Expiration & thaw-check notifications |
Free is not a trial: it has no time limit and it is where most of this page happens. Pro is one purchase, no subscription, shared with up to six people in your Apple family.
Start with these
- How to label breast milk bags (and why a QR beats a Sharpie)
- How many ounces of breast milk for daycare?
- Baby didn't finish the bottle: save it or dump it?
The rule that matters most at handover
Oldest first, always. Not because a newer bag is better, but because the oldest one is the one closest to its estimated limit, and it is the one that gets forgotten at the back. If the person caring for your baby follows one instruction, that is the one, and it is the first line on the sheet the app prints.
The rest of the sheet is the ordinary detail nobody remembers under pressure: warm in warm water, never in the microwave, and what to do with what is left in the bottle. Those are not our rules; they come from the guideline you selected, and each one links to the page it came from.
What Milkloft does not do here
There is no shared account, so the daycare cannot log into your inventory and you cannot watch theirs. That is a consequence of having no server, and it is a real limit: what crosses is a label, a QR and a sheet. Shared caregiver access is a later phase, not a promise we are making today.
Frequently asked questions
Does my daycare need the app?
No, and that is deliberate. What leaves your house is a labelled bag and, if you want it, a sheet on paper. The label carries the name, the date, the amount and a four-letter code in plain text; the QR next to them is for your phone, scanned inside Milkloft. The daycare reads the label and installs nothing.
What has to be on a breast milk label for daycare?
Most centres ask for the baby’s name, the date the milk was expressed and the amount, and many ask for a use-by date. Rules vary, so ask yours. Milkloft prints all four, plus a code you can look up.
Are the labels free?
Yes. Printing labels, exporting a bag’s QR and scanning it are on the free tier. The printable caregiver handoff sheet, which lists your real bags in feeding order, is part of Pro.
What happens to the bottle that comes back half full?
Under the CDC the window runs two hours from the start of the feed, and under the NHS one hour; both count from when the baby began, not when they stopped. Our guide on the unfinished bottle sets out what each one publishes.
How do I know they used the right bag?
You decide the order before it leaves: send the bags the app puts first, and mark them used when they come back empty. What you cannot control is anyone else’s fridge, which is why the sheet says the order in plain words.