Which Medela Electric Breast Pump?

[Visitor6]

We hired the Symphony pump (Still have it) as that is what we used in hospital.

We purchased the twin Symphony kit which came with the Lactina attachment which doubles as a manual pump.

Question. Does the tubing /bottles and collection part (not the membrane I guess) work with the Swing? Any chance of saving money would be great.

[tippytoes]

sorry answered wrong question! I have the swing but I don't know if it would fit etc? Sorry hope you get a helpful answer soon!Rach xx

[Visitor6]

Found the answer - nothing like an eBay search to confirm: and much more realsistic prices!

[leckert]

I have both - got the mini second hand from a friend (she hadn't used it much) and I bought the swing when I went back to work (school teacher). I find I get a better express of milk out of the swing - ie more milk. For me I was also quicker to express with the swing.

I can use the bottles and membrane thingy with both pumps (I still use the mini if I haven't had a chance to give the tubing a wash from the swing some days at home). I'm fairly sure that the medela bits and pieces (bottles etc) are interchangeable with the different pumps. The bottles with the swing are a little shorter and more like a bottle than rectangle-ish and long than the mini.

I'm actually glad I went with the swing in the end. (the ABA shop page had a deal going the other month - not sure if it still is - that gave a bonus carry bag and I ended up with 5 bottles and a cooler, ice brick thingy as well). It just works for me a lot easier and smoother with all the bits and pieces for me when I'm at school.

[Oorki Galoorki]

i had the mini and it wasnt brilliant, i hardly used it with ds but used it LOTS with DD until it died...
the next one i will buy will be the pump in style ( i think)

[Visitor6]

Leckert, rayray

thanks, do you think you could use the mini daily? We are trying to save $$$ where we can!

[Pandora]

Leckert,

thanks, do you think you could use the mini daily? We are trying to save $$$ where we can!

Theres always hand expressing? In terms of how much Im able to express, I find this just as effective as an electric pump (for me anyway) and its free.

[Visitor6]

Yeah that's right we have the hand pump that came with our kit from the SCN so that's certainly true and a great role for me!

[leckert]

thanks, do you think you could use the mini daily? We are trying to save $$$ where we can!

I was using it daily for a bit but only for 1 -2 expresses, when I'm at school I need to do 3-4 (and sometimes 1 more when I get home for enough fresh EBM for the next day and I manage to express around 90mls average at a time; although morning ones are often more). I found that it (the mini) sounded like it was starting to struggle when I was using it a bit more than 1-2 times a day when trying to have a stock up for the first week back when I wasn't sure how much DS would be taking. I now use the mini as my back up pump. I don't have any other pump to fall back on if I need to dry the bits and pieces. I actually agree with Barb in that you get what you pay for in this but you may be able to survive with the mini for a while until you can afford to "upgrade" your pump - that's what I was doing originally as I wasn't sure how the expressing would go and what I'd need for pumping efficiently at school.