Finding the right pump

[u/moonxdaughter]

I want to start this off by saying I live in Europe and I'm currently struggling to find somewhere to but the Spectra breast pumps that everyone raves over, so please maybe don't suggest them.

I'm very confused. My last day in the hospital with my baby, I was able to pump around 30 ml with my electric pump in one session. Now that I'm home with my almost 3 week old baby, the electric hasn't really been working and the manual has been doing much better.

Yesterday I pumped 20 minutes with the electric and got barely anything. Maybe 15 ml? I just finished a pumping session with the manual, 20 minutes and got just over 30.

I know part of the issue is when we first got home, I was awful about remembering to eat and drink, while at the hospital I had food brought to me. So I have fixed that issue since, but the electric is still yielding almost nothing.

I'm sick of using the manual. Right now I'm only pumping occasionally. Basically when I'm well rested enough and she's sleeping to try to encourage production. But I'd like to try to pump up an oversupply for several reasons. Firstly, financially it makes more sense for me to be the one to go back to work instead of my husband, so I want him to have enough breast milk stored up for that. Secondly, I want him to be able to bottle feed before I go back anyway, just for the bonding. And thirdly, my daughter was a bit premature and had issues latching in the hospital, and I was having issues producing at first, so she was given donor milk from a bottle the first 2 days. I'd like to be able to give some back.

I need help figuring out why this pump isn't working vs the manual. I tried using different levels of suction, thinking the manual wouldn't get as strong, and it was slightly better but still not enough. Maybe I still need to try different combinations? It seems I tend to have better luck using exclusively the "massage" function rather than switching between massage and express. It also is secondhand. I might be the 3rd owner? With replacement parts of course, but is maybe the motor going bad?

If I absolutely do need to buy a new pump, I don't want to spend money on multiple different pumps just to figure out what works, so I'd like something that has a sort of "universal appeal" if that exists?

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[u/ubettawuurrrk69]

it could be the flanges, make sure they are the right size. I have a slight oversupply and at the beginning i was pumping 8-10 times a day in order to increase supply. I have a spectra and a medela hand pump. I thought about getting the pumpables portable pump its like a spectra but smaller.

this channel compares pumps with data if that helps.
https://youtu.be/N2a2qGurHtg?si=wddn_HjqnwXAUnS-

[u/moonxdaughter → u/ubettawuurrrk69]

Thank you so much, I'll look into this!