“I have a 9 month old, and will be returning to work two days a week. I’m looking for a breast pump that I can use at work to relieve some of the pressure. Baby is currently full breastfeed (and the plan is to continue for a while yet) but was just thinking of using formula at daycare, as I doubt given her age I would be able to pump enough milk for those daycare days (also I am teacher so realistically would only be able to pump at lunch time). Given her age and the fact I will only be pumping once (twice at the most) a day, I don’t want to spend too much on a pump. Just wondering what particular pumps you would recommend”
This is a common question that we get asked, when mums are researching what is the best breast pump to purchase. I tend to only recommend manual breast pumps for mums that need to pump rarely, or if they are engorged and need to relieve some milk pressure from their breasts In my opinion, a manual pump is pretty much like squeezing a spray’n’wipe trigger to get 5 mls every time – so it can take a long time, particularly if you don’t have a fast letdown. I’m hesitant to recommend manual pumps for mums that are expressing feeds for the times when they are away from baby.
For mums that are expressing to provide a bottle for a feed every day, I’d suggest electric as its much quicker and doesn’t turn into such a chore. For use once or twice per day, I’d suggest the Unimom Allegro breast pump. I don’t think you need to go to a higher grade than that for your situation, as the next models in the range are more for pumping like 3-4 times per day.
An advantage of the Unimom Allegro breast pump is that it is still quite small, the motor is compact and easy to carry in a bag. And the bonus is that the motor does have enough capacity to double pump (you just need to buy a second breastshield kit to set it up as a double). This would cut down your pumping time, particularly if you are in a hurry to do your pumping. The other single pumps that I sell (Medela and Avent brands) –they don’t have that option to convert to double pump. And the Allegro is quite an economical one compared to the others.
Hope that helps, but do sing out if you have any other questions as I’m always happy to help and assess for all types of situations.
