Electric breast pump

[Gemskiola]

Hey,
I wanted to ask ha anyone had any luck expressing more with an electric pump?
I breast feed mostly but have to top up with formula when my husband looks after my son whilst I sleep. I try to express what I can so that my husband can give him breast milk but I only ever manage to express about 50ml in the morning and perhaps 10ml if I can later on in the day. Given that my son easily guzzles over 200ml when I sleep, that’s not nearly enough. I was wondering if I switched to an electric pump wether I’d have more luck.
I currently pump whenever I can (no schedule) because LO eats at random times. Was thinking I might get more with an electric pump simply because I can sit there and let it do the work for me. I just don’t t want to invest in it if it probably won’t yield me much more.

Have you measured your nipples and made sure you're using the correct flange size? The majority of women without supply issues can use the standard flange sizes but they really make a difference with women who have very small or large nipples

You might. I couldn't imagine using a manual pump if you need to pump quite a bit. But pumps are generally not as efficient as a baby. It's worth a try though, but I wouldn't buy one. Look to see if you can hire one - NCT usually does hires but there are lots of private companies online who will hire out hospital grade ones.

I never used an electric pump and didn't do loads of pumping, but have you tried pumping one breast whilst your LO feeds off the other? That's what I mostly did, I got a lot more that way. When I pumped separately to feeding I could hardly produce any (manual pump).

Dw used the Ameda lactaline electric pump and her experience was the same as @MeadowHay that it only really worked when dd was bf at the same time. But it was still good because it was a lot easier than manual, especially when she was tired.

I would say that an electric pump will be much better, yes. Manual ones are so tiring and it's hard to keep up the rhythm for the length of time needed to get a decent amount.

It's also worth knowing though, that your baby may not need the same volumes in ml for breastmilk that they do for formula. Formula ingredients don't change, so babies need larger volumes to satisfy their hunger as they grow, whereas the makeup of breastmilk changes and increases in fat etc as baby grows, so the baby doesn't need ever increasing quantities. Fat volume in breastmilk is also higher in the evening and at night. So babies will feel fuller on smaller amounts.