Why I Switched To The Elvie Breast Pump

When our baby was born in early August, I wanted to feed him as much breast milk as possible. After all, breast is best and it was important to me to pass along as much immunity to my son as possible, with the hopes of passing along antibodies from my Covid-19 vaccine as well as other antibodies given the current staff the world. What no one tells you is how HARD breast pumping is.

I started this journey with the Spectra S2 pump, ($159)  which is a great pump, but has its limitations. Like most breast pumps, you need to be plugged into a wall while using it, so you can’t pick up the baby or catch up on chores. I had heard my mom friends complain about this before having a baby and it didn’t register to me how much of a pain point this is until I found myself in this very same position trying to sneak five minutes of pumping in while my infant naps only for him to wake up wailing and me having to quit the pumping session. You are supposed to pump eight times a day to have enough supply, but this meant that as a sleep-deprived mom I was just being more sleep deprived because instead of sleeping when the baby slept, I was pumping and totally immobile. Naturally, my pumping schedule slipped, and on a good day I was getting four pumping sessions in. That caused my supply to dwindle from 4 ounces each session in the early days to around half an ounce each session.

I had several consultations with a lactation consultant to boost supply and her advice always came down to this: there are no magic bullets to increase your supply other than pumping eight times a day. But, who has the time to pump eight times a day while caring for a newborn and doing all of the other things necessary to adequately take care of yourself and a new baby? Not this mama.

This wasn’t sustainable for me. I had to choose between things like taking a beautiful daily walk in the park with my newborn each day or pumping, and I didn’t want to choose anymore. So, this week I forked over $500 for the Elvie, a chargeable breast pump that I slip into my bra as I go about my day. I can clean the house, do laundry, get in a Peloton ride or go on walks with my son all while pumping, making this the ultimate multitasking device for a new mom short on any time. I also considered the Willow system which is very similar and I was totally swayed by the new mom who ran a full marathon while wearing them and pumping 20 ounces, but the nipple shields were the wrong size for me.

My goal with the Elvie is to pump eight times a day while doing the one million things on my to-do list as a new mom that require me to move about my apartment. Pumping more regularly should increase my supply and also free up my time by not being plugged into the wall.

It’s been a few days of using the Elvie pump and I am kicking myself for not buying this pump at the beginning of my pumping journey. I am actually wearing it now while writing this. It takes a bit of time to get acclimated to the app that you use with it and setting up the pump, but once you do, you are off to the races. The first thing I did after receiving it and sterilizing the parts was to go on a walk with my husband na newborn around our neighborhood. Now, I did resemble a fembot a little bit, but I put on a baggy sweatshirt so that the pumps wouldn’t be too obvious. This was such a freeing way to pump and felt like I was having my cake and eating it too. Later, when we got back to the apartment, I was able to pump while cleaning the baby’s milk bottles and throwing in laundry. Total win!

I’ve noticed that I am already pumping much more frequently than I was with my Spectra, which as my lactation consultant said is the key to bettering your milk supply. The goal here is to give a higher percentage of breast milk while still supplementing with formula.

The Elvie app tracks all of your sessions and how much milk each boob produces. The sensor is a bit off — often saying my left boob has produced 2 ounces when in reality it’s more like .75 ounces, but you are able to manually change that in the app to more accurately track your production. I like the ability to track the sessions and output and see a trend line over time (hopefully mine goes up!). I also like that the Elvie allows you to control each breast separately. So, if one nipple can take higher suction, you can put that one on a level six while keeping the other one on level 2.

It’s early days, but my first impression is that I wish I started my breast pumping journey two months ago with Elvie. It likely would have lead to my pumping much more and having great supply from the beginning, instead of it slowly dwindling down.

I will circle back in a few weeks with my productions results. Wish me luck!

Here are some of my other breast feeding/pumping essentials:

La Vie Breast Massager to clear out clogged ducts. This tool is a life saver. $35
Legendairy Milk Sunflower Licithin to clear up clogged milk ducts

Legendary Milk Milkapalooza supplements to help supply

Spectra Caracups, $75. These work with the Spectra S2 and slip into your bra rather than having flanges that hang out of your bra. You still need to be plugged in, but they are less in your face.