Elbow breast pump worth the hype?

[BuffyFanForever]

Hi all, I’m looking to get a double electric Brest pump to feed my twins and wondering if the Elvie is worth the hype. They given a 15% off code for Black Friday but it’s still a serious amount of money. Hoping to express all milk and bottle feed using it so my Wife and I share feeding. Can anyone recommend a good double electric great pump or would anyone say this one is worth it? All advice welcome

It’s meant to say Elvie! Sorry autocorrect

The Elvie will not be suitable for exclusive expressing, especially not for twins. You will need a hospital-grade double pump, like the Medela Symphony Plus. They are expensive but it is almost always possible to hire one before making the investment - ask your midwife what the process is at your hospital.

May I just gently suggest that you also read up on exclusive expressing if you haven’t already. Kellymom.com is a great resource. It is hard hard work, much harder than breastfeeding directly, and that’s just for singleton births. I can’t imagine exclusive expressing for twins although I’m sure there are women who do it.

Thank you for your feedback. Very helpful. I’ll have a look at the resources you suggested. We are very sure that this is something we will be doing and want to find out the best equipment as clearly we haven’t any experience of which ones are great/ useful/ will get the job done 😊

Echoing pp - just make sure that you have looked at the schedules in particular. You will have to pump every 2-3 hours day and night for the first three months, then you can stretch it to every 3-4 hours - still day and night. Studies tend to show that babies fed with a combination of expressed milk and direct feeding or breast milk supplemented with formula receive breast milk for the longest.

Exclusive expressing is the hardest parts of breastfeeding and formula feeding combined and it is not to be undertaken lightly. I’m sorry to sound negative but I watched a family member struggle terribly with it after placing huge pressure on herself and I really urge you to know what you are taking on. There won’t be many twin mums who have exclusively expressed but I’m sure there must be some that you could track down, maybe via the multiples board here or TAMBA.

A hospital grade pump would be good, such as a Medela one 😊 you can hire ones online first if you wanted to see how you get on. I would say though that there are good deals on Amazon for pumps at the moment because of black friday. I believe the Elvie wouldn't be any good for exclusively pumping so the money spent on that would be best suited to a Medela or Ardo pump.

I have the BellaBaby one from Amazon, it was only £40 and I love it, it saved me hundreds. I'm not exclusively pumping, I'm mixed feeding between expressed and formula (long story!) And it works for that, so maybe worth considering if you are short on money 😊

Sorry to end my super long post, if you have instagram I would recommend following a couple of exclusively pumping mums. My favourite is @lustliving and she has some really good tips etc.

Hope that helps!

Hi,

I exclusively pumped for 3 weeks with DS 1 and planning on exclusively pumping for this one. There is an exclusive pumping thread a bit further down the pregnancy board with advice on 😊

The Elvie wouldn’t work for exclusive pumping but would be handy for out and about/when you need your hands free.

I’ve got the bellababy for portability, then spectra s1 when I can be pinned to the sofa - I’ll use both with a pumping bra.

It’s hard to understand how brutal pumping is until you do it, so go for it and I wish you luck, but don’t put any pressure on yourself.

The schedule for the first 3 months is every 2-3 hours, round the clock - as a PP has said, you can then start combining pumps and stretching them out a bit.

It is the worst of both worlds as PP has said, but I actually also find it the best of both worlds - despite the harshness of the schedule, I found it helped me immensely when we had awful breastfeeding issues with DS - I only stopped pumping because of awful advice from his dietician.

I’ve chosen to pump this time as my DS was allergic to formula, but my mental health was destroyed by direct nursing (long story), pumping is a great solution for us - I avoid the risk of allergy in baby (I’m dairy free), baby benefits from the breastmilk being best for their gut, and other than the cost of the pump and my time, it’s cheaper than formula 😊