The Elvie: a unique pump that saved my breastfeeding journey

Even before I finally got pregnant and was still in the dreaming stages of becoming a mom, the one thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to breastfeed. Since my sister was born when I was 11 and my brother when I was 15, I had watched my mom nurse two children and to me it seemed like a no brainer. Your body made milk, baby drank said milk, the end.

Of course, things would not be that easy for me or for countless other parents who wish to breastfeed their children. My daughter would end up spending 32 days in the NICU, and once she did come home, we had trouble with latching for a variety of reasons. Nursing would not work out for us, but exclusively pumping (something I didn’t even know was a thing) absolutely would.

But I am getting ahead of myself here.

When I was pregnant, I started looking at different types of breast pumps because I knew I would be going back to work. A friend told me about two wearable pumps, the Elvie and the Willow, and those just seemed so cool to me, especially knowing how it can be hard to find time to pump with teaching. They were pricey, but after checking with my insurance, I realized I could get either one at a discount since they would pay for a portion. I used 1 Natural Way, and they took care of everything and have AfterPay so the financial burden wasn’t so big all at once.

Why did I choose the Elvie?

Honestly, there aren’t too many differences in concept between the Elvie and the Willow. They both go in your bra, neither one uses tubing, and both are pretty quiet. Both also come with an app to help you control your pumps and track usage. The main two reasons I chose the Elvie over the willow are because I liked the shape of the Elvie better, and I didn’t like the milk collection mechanism of the Willow. With the Elvie, the milk goes into little bottles and then you pour the milk out. It is very straightforward. With the Willow, you either pump into reusable containers or bags, but the shape of the containers seemed complicated to me and there was no way I was going to be spending money on special bags all the time.

I also watched several YouTube videos from bloggers that I follow who had tried both, and all of them preferred the Elvie. There are plenty of people who absolutely love the Willow, so this is not to discourage anyone from buying that pump, this is just went through my mind when choosing. One benefit the Willow has over the Elvie is that you can pump in any position, including laying down, which is great for those newborn days.

The Learning Curve

In the hospital, they gave me a hospital grade pump and kit to use in order to get my supply going since my baby was in the NICU and couldn’t latch. I hated dealing with all the tubes and being connected to the pump, so this really affirmed for me that I had made a good choice by going with a wearable pump versus a traditional one. I only got a few drops of milk the day that I left the hospital, so I was nervous as to how things would go when I got home.

After setting everything up, I was surprised to have my milk come flooding out on the very first pump with the Elvie. I immediately started filling up lots of Snappies, the little bottles the NICU gave me to store my milk for the baby, and was so happy to be able to supply milk for her even though I couldn’t nurse. The one thing that frustrated me initially was that sometimes I would put the pumps on and there would be no suction. When this would happen, my husband and I would both try disassembling and reassembling the pump to get it to work. We eventually learned how to get the pump together to work properly on the first go 99% of the time, but this was a little frustrating initially. I credit just time spent working with the pump and a Facebook group I joined with my success it getting it to work for me consistently.

Daily Use

Once I got the hang of everything, pumping daily with the Elvie became just part of my life. I am not going to sugarcoat it, pumping sucks and I can’t wait to be done, but the Elvie makes it suck SO much less. When I initially went back to work at four months postpartum, I was pumping five times a day, so two of my pumps happened at work. It would not have been possible for me to do that with a different kind of pump since one of those two was during my newspaper class. Now at nearly 10 months postpartum, I am currently pumping four times a day, so I just pump once at work during planning.

Besides pumping at work, the Elvie has given me the freedom to pump while doing chores, playing with the baby, lounging on the couch, walking through a garden, and more. I take that thing pretty much everywhere! I love the fact that I can pump anywhere and no one even knows. When I have showed friends, family, and co-workers that I am pumping in front of them, they are always floored!

Pros/ Cons

Every single pump out there is going to come with good and bad. Ultimately, it is about what works and is important for you.

What I love

• I love, love, love being tube and cord free. I cannot stand being plugged into anything and thoroughly enjoy the freedom I have, even if it is just to lounge on the couch and play Animal Crossing.
• I can easily pump on the go. I have pumped while driving, at the beach, in the NICU, on walks, and while teaching. No one can even tell what is going on or has any idea. The pumps are small and portable and pretty much silent.
• I don’t have to deal with a pumping bra and big things getting in my way. I just slip the Elvies into my bra and go.
• The suction is more comfortable for me. The Elvie uses a suction that is designed to mimic a baby’s sucking and is quite different from traditional pumps. My body has responded really well to this and I think it is a big part of why my production has been good.
• There aren’t a lot of parts to wash or rememeber. The only thing you wash are the bottles, shield, and two little green pieces. It’s quick and easy and I don’t have a ton of parts all over my counter.

Things that drive me crazy

• The quality of the bottles is questionable. I haven’t seen other people talk about this, but I have an issue where the bottles crack after a period of time (we are talking a few months). I have contacted Elvie customer service, which is excellent by the way, a few times and they have replaced my bottles, but I have also purchased replacements. I’ve worked with Elvie to try and figure out why this keeps happening to me, but we haven’t figured it out. You also can’t put the plastic parts in the sterilizer, which definitely annoyed me in the newborn phase.
• The green parts don’t work right out of the box for me. I have to kind of wear them in before they will work properly. It is like they are just too stiff out of the box and I won’t get any suction. I usually wash them and run them through the Baby Brezza a few times to soften them.
• The app can be finicky. It will often tell me that my bottles are full when they are definitely not. The Elvie bottles can hold a little over 5 ounces, but the app will tell me they are full at 4 or 4.5. This isn’t too big of a deal as I just tell the pump to keep going, but it can be annoying. I also have to correct the app at the end of my pumping session as it never really is accurate for what is in the bottles.

Final Thoughts

If not for the Elvie, I think I might have given up when nursing didn’t work out for us, especially in the beginning when I was pumping like seven to eight times a day. Even with the Elvie it was a lot, so I just can’t imagine if I had tried to do it with a traditional pump. Learning that exclusively pumping was possible and that lots of birthing parents do it, along with having a portable pump, absolutely saved my breastfeeding journey. Yes, there are things about the Elvie that are a bit finicky, but they are absolutely worth it to me.

One last thing that I have learned, after months of being in several Facebook groups for both exclusive pumpers and Elvie users, is that it seems like the people that have the most success with the Elvie are the ones that use it as their only pump. As I mentioned, the Elvie having a different kind of suction is something I really like, but a lot of people have said that trying to switch from a traditional pump to the Elvie was not successful for them. At the end of the day, not every pump works for every person, and that is true of traditional pumps too. So many people have said that their body responds to one pump over the other. That can obviously be an expensive lesson to learn, so I am very grateful to have gotten it right on the first try. I guess my point here is that if you are using any kind of pump for the first time, be sure to give it time for your body to get used to it before deciding for sure if it works for you.

Alright, that is all I’ve got on that. If you have any questions about the Elvie or exclusively pumping, let me know! I have got an EP journey post in the works that I will publish when I reach a year.

xx,

Camile