Breastfeeding and expressing

[jessm2109]

Hi all,

I am 34 weeks pregnant with my first baby. I am planning to breastfeed and am getting prepared now with things I need.

For those of you who decided to breastfeed, did you express? If so, can anyone recommend an electric breast pump (single or double) and also, at what stage would you recommend buying one.

I know you should avoid expressing/feeding baby from a bottle for the first 4-6 weeks of feeding, so no rush but just looking into how much it'll be now!

Thanks in advance.

x

I had a medela swing (and I heartily recommend buying it at a good discount at the baby show like I did ;) )

If I were buying a new one now, I'd buy a closed system instead. The medela swing isn't a closed system, which means theoretically milk can get into the workings of the pump and grow nasty things. A closed system is one where the pump bits are never able to get into contact with the milk and all the bits that do can be replaced / sterilised.

I breast fed for 18 months and really struggled at the beginning. Instead of giving up my health visitor advised me to start expressing after about three weeks. I found it was a bit easier to manage than Breast feeding at times because it was less painful. It also meant my husband could feed the baby.
After 6 weeks the pain of breast feeding practically disappeared and I didn't express as much then. Just do what you need to do to get through it! My daughter was happy with breast or bottle. I'm expecting number two now and will buy another pump as soon as possible.
I used a single, electric pump that was ace but very noisy! I will get a quieter one this time!

A manual one is good for occasional use or travelling but an electric one if you need to use it all the time. Definitely wait until the baby is here and you know how breastfeeding is going. I couldn't breastfeed it turned out, for a variety of reasons, including my baby having a sore neck from forceps delivery, terrible latch when we did find a position that was comfortable for her (it was NOT comfortable for me) and whilst my colostrum was pretty normal, my actual milk supply was next to nothing (as seems to be the case for all the women in my family, as I later found out). I used an electric double pump in hospital (topped up with formula, much to my disappointment, from day 2 onwards as it wasn't enough and she was going downhill fast). My family bought a manual pump for when I got home but I ended up hiring an electric double pump as I needed to express after every feed, so up to 12 times a day, and did not have time to do both sides manually. So please, don't assume anything, don't buy anything beforehand, and if it looks like you'll need to express a lot then don't waste money on anything but an electric double pump (hired or bought).

Thank you all for your advice, I was thinking I would wait until breastfeeding is fully established before going ahead and buying one, I just thought it would be useful to get other mums opinions on different pumps and timings -so thank you! :)

I used a pump for the first 6 weeks as ds wouldn't latch on, so I pumped and topped up with formula. Initially used a manual tommy tippee one then my dp bought an electric one, but I forget which make it was. We've since lent it out so I can't check.

At 6 weeks ds decided to latch on and we haven't used a bottle since. I agree with pp, wait and see what happens. But it was invaluable to us to get us started.