First time mum - help needed!

[JollyDreamer]

Hi All,

I’m looking for some advice on breast pumps. I’m a soon to be first time mum and keen to breastfeed but also pump so I have some freedom and it allows my husband to help with feeding too.

I just don’t know what type of pump to get. I appreciate with the wearable ones/ in bra type ones you can get up and about with your day whilst pumping but do they allow you to pump much milk? Am I better with an electric pump? Does it take less time to get more milk as they are more powerful? If so how long might a pumping session last? I don’t really see myself using a manual hand pump so any advice/ recommendations would be greatly appreciated. I don’t want to spend £100’s and feel like I’ve made the wrong or an uniformed choice.

TIA 🙏🏻

Some women can’t get much milk from pumping at all. You don’t know until the time comes 😄

I would advise getting a cheap electric one to see if you get along with it then if you do upgrade to a better quality one. I had one off amazon for about £30.

A pumping session can be anything from 10-30 minutes.

I never tried the wearable ones as they were way out of my price range but had a bra that the pumps could fit in and put the battery pack in my pocket to get on with housework. Looked silly but did the job.

I have and still have three expensive electric pumps from exclusively pumping with DC1, only used the Medela handpump so far with DC2 and feel the output is 10x better. Wish I knew about it then!

Neither of my bf babies would ever drink from a bottle, so anything I pumped and froze was wasted. Some people also have milk that degrades when frozen so you’d want to check that too (IIRC something to do with lipase) before investing financially in the pump (and mentally in the idea of pumping).
Also, the baby is a much bigger obstacle to walking around and getting on with your day than the pump is.
I would get a second hand medela pump (and buy the tubes and shields new if you don’t feel that sterlising them is enough). If the baby cooperates then you can upgrade to something snazzy like the Elvie.
Manual pumps are surprisingly effective and don’t make the irritating noise.

I would establish breastfeeding before you think about pumping. My cousin bought the pump, the bags, the nipple covers, the bras, everything! And then couldn't breastfeed 🤦🏻‍♀️
Plus in those first 8 weeks especially you need the baby to be cluster feeding to bring your supply in. I never pumped until around month 3/4 x

Buy a haakaa, best thing ever x

Pumping never worked for me. I found it time consuming - time I didn’t really have when I was exclusively breastfeeding. I also didn’t produce much when expressing (I knew this wasn’t representative of my supply). I gave up and my babies both had one bottle of formula which dad did from about 4 weeks.

Don't assume it will save time. You will have to pump (easily 30 mins) and then also feed your baby (could be another 30 mins) - so although in theory it is great to let someone else do a feed, it doesn't actually save you much time.

Saying that though I did pump (Medula pump) and found the battery pump fine although time consuming. You have no idea how you will take to breastfeding/pumping until it actually happens so dont invest too much up front.

Hi op, I’ve done what you are hoping to do. Still expressing and feeding at 11 months. I pumped from when my milk came in, I was lucky though as had more than baby needed so managed to build a freezer stash up early. DD has also taken a bottle along side bf the whole time, that’s not to say there hasn’t been bumps in the road though.

It’s hard to say what will work best until you’re in that situation. I have used an elvie wearable (wouldn’t recommend), momcozy m5 (was good initially but not so good nowadays), momcozy m6 (recommend for a wearable), spectra S1, (recommend as probably the best pump of them all but it’s more restrictive as its got proper flanges and bottles etc). You really need to make sure you measure your nipple size and buy the right flange size, not all pumps come with the right size for you.

I would recommend watching videos on YT about how to express alongside BF. You’ll find a lot of useful info comes from Americans as they are well ahead in the pumping game due to no proper mat leave so lots more exclusive pumpers. Ultimately the priority needs to be feeding baby and that’s up to you how you prefer, but it is very important to allow them to cluster feed as the loop signal from that is what will dictate your supply. I spent a lot of time learning and watching YT videos etc so I understood as much as possible. I intended to exclusively pump but DD latched really well from the get go so it suited us to do both.

Having her take a bottle and being able to express has meant we are able to parent much more 50:50 and I’ve been lucky and had a little spa break with my sister, taken my eldest to LEGOLAND overnight etc. It’s really worth the extra work in my opinion but obviously it’s not for everyone.

I wouldn't buy until the baby is here because you can't predict if you'll even want to use one. I exclusively pumped for 6 months so got an electric wearable one. So much better than anything else.