When to buy a breast pump?

[figgygal]

Ladies please help me out!!

Am 31 weeks and starting to think about all the odds and ends I haven't got yet. I'm planning on breastfeeding and want an electric pump but they r so expensive so keeping an eye out for baby events at asda, boots etc to see if can get a cheap one.

Anyway even then they £40+ and I'm just worried that if I can't BF for whatever reason I'll have wasted the money. Do People usually but them after baby arrived so know it will actually be needed or just buy on assumption all will be fine?

Any ideas?

Do you have a Morrisons near you? I got my Avent one there very recently for just £7, so I snapped it up. Get one as soon as you see a cheap one, I spend £50 on an electric one for dd and much prefer the Avent manual one, I found the electric one was far too much effort and very noisy. Once you get a letdown reflex with a hand pump, you don't even have to keep pumping, it does the work for you :)

when you need one.
seriously, most supermarkets have one or two. I bf both my dc but they never got he hang of bottles, so the pump I got wasn't used much. but it was a godsend when I had a blocked duct.

I would wait and see if you need one. I fed ds for over a year and never did.

I had to drive 1.5 hours to buy one when 7m old DC4 went on a nursing strike. Nowhere closer sold them.
That was a complete PITA.
But tend to agree don't bother until you know you need it.
Cheap on Ebay, too, I think. The Avent one can be completely sterilised for reuse.

Have you thought about hiring one instead? I bought my Avent electric one and it was fantastic, I couldn't have done without it. I started pumping about 3 days after DS was born to up my supply and carried on pumping most days for the 7 months I bf to keep a freezer full for the nights I wanted to go out/have a drink/sleep but from what I've heard you can hire hospital grade ones really cheaply.

I'd look into where you can get them from - I got to about a week after ds was born, had total hysterics, and packed DH off to drive to Mothercare with instructions to buy an overpriced electric breast pump and anything else he thought might help with breastfeeding.

It was stupidly expensive (£90 for electric Avent), but they did kindly stay open late to let him in, and with that and the My Brest Friend pillow and some other stuff that we took back, I managed to feed in the end (14 months).

I was very annoyed though to find that our local supermarket also sold the pumps for only £60! Should have looked beforehand! And it turns out my hospital could have hired me one if I'd asked pre-birth.

Ah well, at least I'll get the pump back off my friend for dc2!

I agree that you should only buy one if you need it. It will be money wasted if you don't.

Buy one when you know BF is working for you.

Get a cheapy hand pump to start (I had the Tommee Tippee one with the Closer to Nature bottles). If you get on ok with it, progress to a electric pump.

I have this one but a double pump and it is fab. Really good suction and very quiet. Also on a par on price with other ones - I believe this is the pump of choice on maternity wards. I had a Medela one to start with which I took back as it was crap. Leaked, noisy and was not good with suction.

If you do get an electric one, also buy a cheap bra that you can cut a slot into, then you can pump hands-free! (and look ultra-sexy at the same time, natch )

I just bought a new tommee tippee one that has only been used once on Ebay for 7 pound including postage!! have a look on there - plenty of only used once or still in box bargains on all sorts of breast pumps.