Expressing, what am I doing wrong?

[Islamum]

I have a Medela small electric pump, I express in the evening and some days it works like a dream, other days I don't get much out, today I have only managed about 75mls but when I hand express I can still get loads out, whats going on? what am I doing wrong?

I found it very difficult to express in the evening. I found the morning was much more fruitful.
Not sure about the difference between hand and electric though.

The difference, I think, is that when you use a pump, it can only move the milk out of the front of your breast, that has already been pushed there by let down etc. When you hand express, you can manually move the milk forward as well, so its more like how the baby actually feeds.
This is only based on my thoughts having spent hours expressing over the last 20 months.
I always pumped first, then pumped plus breast compressions, then hand expressed.

It's just different ways the breast is worked, sometimes a pump will get loads out sometimes a hand will, but the breast is designed to release milk through the sucking action of a babies jaw which is hard to replicate.

I also second the idea of breast compression? I expressed exclusively for 1 yr with dd1 and found this worked a treat. Also it helps to ensure that the nipple is slap bang in the centre so the bit where the milk comes out (don't know the techical term) is in the middle - does that make any sense??