Breast pump suggestions

[fi1980]

Hi

I'm hoping I might be able to get some suggestions or advice on a suitable breast pump to use.

Currently I am expressing enough for one feed per day so that DH can feed and bond with our daughter and so that she gets used to taking a bottle seeing as I have to return to work part time in the new year and want to continue to give her breast milk.

At the moment I am using a Tommee Tippee Freedom manual breast pump. When I am only expressing for one feed per day I find that it is satisfactory but certainly not great. Often it is a slow process, even though I know there is plenty of milk it is hard to get it out with this pump. The morning is definitely the best/easiest time for me to use this and one breast is easier and quicker to express from than the other! As I will be returning to work approx 2 days per week I feel that I will need a more efficent pump to manage the increased quantity of expressing required.

Will I need to invest in an electric pump or will a better quality manual one be sufficient?

Any advice / suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[my-three-monkeys]

Hi,
I had the AVENT isis manual pump. It was awesome.
My SIL has just gotten rid of her pigeon electric pump to buy one the same as mine after taking it for a test run.
Good Luck.

[KimmyF]

I had a tommee tippee one the closer to nature one i think it was i used it for twelve months nearly and it broke (probably from over use) I was back at work three days and expressing for those feeds i was missing so i was using it about three times a day at least. It did the job but it was slow! When it broke i bought the medela mini electric and it was the best thing i ever did! Much quicker for use at work, it was a little more expensive than the manual ones, but when i weighed up the time i saved etc, i felt it was definately worth it!

[Mel A]

go the AVENT electric.
You can set the pump rate and it comes with a battrey pack as well. Fantastic. it also has silcone breast pad thinks that help to stimulate the ducts.

I had fantastic milk supply and could could get 240ml from each breas after feeding.

hope this helps

[~Kim~]

Fi, I've only ever had a manual Avent one, but I did express for 2-3days per week for a loooong time.
I found the Avent one to be great, I'm not sure what your definition of slow is though. It used to take me about 30minutes to get 200ml out of both sides (15mins each). Towards the end that slowed right down though to about 100mls sadly.
Unfortunately no matter how much milk you have a baby sucking is always going to be more effective so sometimes you have to pump more often than she would feed. Like when I did night work I would pump a couple of times even though DD only had one feed overnight.

[fi1980]

Thanks for your suggestions girls. Yep, time is a bit of an issue as when I am back at work I want to be able to express as quickly and efficiently as possible. I also find that my hands get quite sore when using the manual one (I think I got carpal tunnel during pg). I figure if I can get a pump that works really well for me then it will prolong my BF as if I'm finding it too hard I may be inclined to give up sooner than I would really like to.

Cheers,
Fi

[Rainbow_Mumma]

i had the manual avent isis and it was fantastic very different to the manual pump i was used to with DD1 i would recommend it to anyone!