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Products

Lansinoh Double Electric Pump
Not readily available at most baby stores, but can be bought online or call Emma on 0834558338




As recommended by Sr Emma at our antenatal class. This is the only available pump that does not pump the milk through the pipes and through the machine into the bottle. The milk goes directly from your breasts into the bottle. Understandably, this has huge implications for sterile milk. It's kind of a no-brainer.
Also get the electric pump, it may be more expensive, but you need to work out what your time is worth. I never have to pump for longer than 7 - 10 minutes with this one, and since I bought the ingenious bra that holds the pump to your breasts, I have free hands for 7 - 10 minutes.
Sterilising it is a breeze and the parts are easy to assemble. Do sometimes have difficulty attaching the valve without touching it, but much easier now that I have a little plastic tweezer.
The bottles fit any small size standard teat, so you can feed directly from them if you need to.
Lansinoh also make 180ml size milk storage bags, which are simple and quite affordable, though you can't pump directly into the bag like you do with medela pump. You can obviously use any bags you want but make sure the plastic is BPA free.

Medela Calma bottle
Available most baby stores and large pharmacies


This bottle was given to me as a sample. It's meant for babies who are exclusively breastfed, and who have never used another bottle before. 
My baby is breastfed only, but the literature recommends introducing a bottle for 1 feed at 4 to 6 weeks, to get them used to it before it becomes hard. Obviously you don't want to create nipple confusion in the process, so deciding which bottle to use is hard. I was very lucky that this choice was made for me. This bottle is more expensive than most bottles, but seems to be well worth the price if you read the reviews. I found that baby still drank very quickly from this bottle, but when I introduced pause feeding (allowing her to suck for few sucks then pulling the bottle out and letting her breathe) she drank beautifully with no more winds than on the breast. There was also definitely no change in her breastfeeding latch. I still prefer to breastfeed most days, but feel completely comfortable letting someone else feed her with this bottle while she's being babysat. 
I had difficulty figuring out how to test the milk temperature since the bottle only releases milk when baby sucks the teat. I googled it and found that you simply squeeze the bottle to allow a few drops to come out. the other issue was that the bottle is not easy to reassemble while its parts are sterile, but I sterilise it disassembled first, then carefully put the parts of the teat together before sterilising it again.

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