Breast Pumps - any suggestions?

[Doozie]

Hi, can anyone recommend a good breast pump(or what type/brand to avoid)?

I will only be expressing 1-3 bottles a day so I'm guessing a manual breast pump will probably be fine for my needs. But please advise otherwise if they are horrid to use and electric are so much more confortable, efficient etc.!

Many thanks,

Doozie

i didn't get n well with a manual one, but did alot better with the medela mini electric. you can pick up refurbished ones on ebay.

Doozie I also have a Medela Mini Electric. I think expressing with a manual pump would take too long - my hand Expressing off an engorged breast I can get out about 5 oz in less than ten minutes.

I expressed at work for 6m and hence shelled out for a Lactaline double electric, which was utterly worth the money as a) it got twice as much milk as a single one and b) I could eat my lunch at the same time.

when I was just doing 10min here and there (often with dd on the other side) to get one or two bottles a week I liked the Tommy Tippee Freedom manual one - and it was cheap.

i have the lactaline double electric one...and it's amazing.

my poor breasts just don't have milk anymore. i'm downing whole bottles of fenugreek tablets. and posting everywhere looking for anything else i can do to up my supply.

I use the Tommy Tippee Freedom and it seems fine (though I haven't tried any others so nothing to compare it to). Like MrsBadger says, it's cheap, plus it's often on special offer (think we got ours for £16 from Boots). Comes apart easily for cleaning too

I expressed at work 5 days a week for a year and had the Lactaline. Twas fantastic, and you can pick them up second hand on ebay (all parts that can come into contact with milk are fully sterilisable) and then sell afterwards for not much less, so can actually work out cheaper than a new manual pump

I had the Medela Swing and it was great right up until a few weeks ago when the motor starting smoking...

I used the Avent manual pump at first. It worked well. But because I am going back to work, I recently bought the Ameda Lactaline dual electric pump. I must say it is a good investment and I should have just bought it to begin with. It saves time and does an efficient job. It is also relatively cheaper compared to some other electric pumps in the market.

at Ilovemydog's smoking Medela! Do you have it long?
I have only ever used Avent pumps, have used the manual, the Uno and the Duo. For ds1 and ds2 the manual one was the best thing on the market, but you can get RSI from it! I got the Uno this year and thought it was fantastic.... until I got the Duo back down out the the attic. There's no comparison. But the Uno is a good little electric single pump. It is nice and quiet as well, I didn't feel self conscious using it in a toilet cubicle in Dublin airport. I have heard the Medela mini electric is noisy but have never used it so can't compare.

the medela mini is noisy - but you can always put the tele on subtitles and the sound of it sends my baby to sleep

It's great if you're on a budget and only expressing one feed a day. Antthing more than that and you should prob invest in somthing else.

My medela swing is about 8 months old... It started off fairly quiet, then has gotten progressively louder and now probably shouldn't use as it sounds like it's about to explode (implode?)

I would take it back. Medela are usually pretty good about replacing parts if necessary.

This is all good stuff! Thanks peeps! Even for one or two bottles a day it sounds like a worthwhile investment buying an electric pump. Otherwise I think I would just jack it in getting fed up with a manual hand pump. Good point annvan and chipmonkey about the RSI, sounds very tedious, slow and painful manually pumping away. Or maybe I'm just a wimp!

i have the madela manual-got it cheap in tk maxx-for about £12.00. i only use it occassionally for the odd trip to the hairdressers/doctors etc but i can manage about 3 oz in about 5 mins. you should try tk maxx to see if they have the one on offer that you are looking for? hth

I've got a Tommee Tippee manual pump that's pretty good. For the first week DS wouldn't latch at all so I was expressing every three hours to feed him - my hand did ache but it was do-able!