Which Medela Electric Breast Pump?

[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)

[Pandora]

Hi,

With breastpumps, you pay for what you get. if this is your first baby, you will get use out of a pump like the "swing" with subsequent babies. The motor on the mini electric has a limited lifespan. The mini-electric is also very noisy. In comparison to other baby "stuff" we buy the cost of the pump is not enormous. I would go for the best you can afford.
Barb

I agree with this 100%, and I've owned and used both the mini electric (with DS1) and the swing (with DS2)

I actually find them both loud - mini electric was louder though - but thats compared to the commercial/hospital pumps

I found the swing to be slightly gentler than the mini electric too.

[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.