Not exactly a question you'd expect from a guy

[sraun]

kosmickitten is about sixteen weeks along now. She's starting to think about dealing with a baby - they're doing baby registration, and she's pondering breast pumps. She thinks she'll be an occasional user - she's not working, and by the current schedule she'll be done with college. So, what she wants is the capability to leave enough milk with bernesemntdog, a sitter, or a relative, that the baby will do fine and she can go do something away-from-baby for a few hours. So, she's looking input. Electrical vs. manual. Any specific brand/model recommendations or dis-recommendations.

If you really want to write a monologue in comments here, go ahead and I'll forward it to her. If you'd like to have a dialogue with her, leave me contact info and I'll have her get back to you.

Comments

[buttonlass.livejournal.com]

I used an electric Medela, I think it was Pump n'Style or something like that. It was in a black self contained box with extra storage for parts. It was lovely. It was worth every penny to be able to do both breasts at once. So if she's registering for one it's well worth it. I was mostly a stay at home mom and this worked great. Plus it had a car adapter in case you got caught out.

I have very strong hands and patience and the manual pumps are terrible.

When Nico was new and they kept him for a few days I got to use the hospital pump which was great. But really overkill for in your home occasionally to go out.

If you don't magically get the pump she wants you can always get them used. They sell all the external parts at Target and Babies'r'Us. Unless someone has seriously messed up and let the milk back up a lot, used pumps are fine once you replace the parts, i.e. breast cups, tubing, valves.

And a lactation consultant is really useful if you're new at mommahood. You can avoid many problems getting a little advice right off the bat. I never had anything go terribly wrong as far as mechanics, which I attribute to the nice lady who helped us.:)

I have a fair share of recent experience if there are more questions. We breast fed Nico for most of the first year until I tried to go back to work. Oops.:)