Which electric breast pump?

[Onlymydogunderstandsme]

Just looking for some guidance, I am determined to breast feed and my midwife has said that a good electric breast pump is a must. I'm thinking of the Tommy Tippee Closer to Nature pump but saw some reviews that were't great, mainly saying it was noisy but I guess most of them are? Any opinions welcome as they are quite expensive I don't want to waste money!

Hi,

I'm not sure why the midwife has told you it's a must? I think the best advice is that you really need to let your milk get established and get into the swing of breast feeding before you begin to start 'pumping'... I wouldn't buy it before baby comes and wait and see how it all goes..

I think the medela one is meant to be one of the best - I went out and panic purchased it and barely used it so like you say complete waste of alot of money..

You can hire them? though again, would really wait and see how you get on with breast feeding as I can't see that it's a must in the early weeks/months.

Good luck.

I used the Medela pump.
I found it very good. I used it quite a bit, as I had too much milk and my boobs were going to explode!
I also wanted DS2 to take from a bottle early on. So expressed and he still had the breast milk. DH fed him once a day.
But I agree that I would wait a bit and see if you need it before you spend all that money. If there is a store near you that sells them you can always nip out for it.

I used the medela swing and it was fantastic. You can get them on ebay second hand for about £40 if you're patient with bidding - I think they get over £100 when new.

I panic bought last time because, like Daisy, when my milk came in my boobs were on the verge of exploding. we naively bought new from Boots and it was expensive as there are quite a few extras that seemed vital at the time (freezer storage bags, storage bottles, bottles...). I think my husband just swept his hand across the medela shelf in a blind panic and bought the lot. Most of it was never used!

Maybe just get a cheap hand pump as a back-up until you know if you'll need one? Think you can rent them from local NCT as well.

I had this one and it was fantastic. Really easy to use and you can add on a second shield if you want a double pump. Spare parts are available on amazon easily. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I have linked it on here many times and have had private mails thanking me!

Oh NO!!! Don't buy the Tommee Tippee!!!! I bought as seemed really good value - awful, poor suck strength, noisy pathetic machine.

I took it back and got a Medela - brilliant it mimics the babies rapid suck for let-down then goes into rythmic strong suck for good flow - you can control strong or gentle suck to suit your preference and easy to clean etc.

You can also see the into the bottle to see how you are doing as you collect which you can't with the TT - I had to get dh to look and tell me - and then the answer was usually awful cos the flow never got going properly with the waste of space of a breast pump.

I had the tommy tippee electric and loved it! Trick is to attach it on an angle rather than straight down then you can see how much you've expressed! It wasn't exactly quiet but could still (for example) hear the tv over it, and I could feed ds on 1 side and express the other simultaneously once bf-ing was more established.

Agree it's not an essential for when baby is born, I personally started expressing when ds was a week old for medical reasons (I was advised due to medication that I should mix feed, didn't want my supply to suffer so I expressed and discarded a feed whenever ds was given formula) and it never bothered me, but just out of other mums I know, 2 couldn't establish breastfeeding, and although 1 tried to express and feed that way it didn't stimulate her supply enough and was knackering, she only did it less than a week. Another's LO refused a bottle so expressed milk was useless. And another breastfed for 6 months and tried frequently to express but never managed to get more than a few oz!

I'd say see if you can establish breastfeeding first, or if you desperately want to buy a pump immediately get one second hand or hire 1 from the NCT rather than buying until you know if it will be used.