Express Yourself: Our Favorite Breast Pumps to Shave Time off Pumping

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As someone who has spent 4 years of her life breastfeeding, I know the utility of a good breast pump. Having a great breast pump can make all the difference if you're breastfeeding your baby. It can help you breastfeed for a longer time, and it can help you maintain your milk supply, and if you're going back to work, it can keep you from feeling like you have two overfull water balloons sitting on your ribcage, threatening to pop the buttons on your top a la The Incredible Hulk.

Best Breast Pumps

• Best Overall: Spectra S1

• Best Wearable: Willow 3.0

• Easiest Controls: Medela Pump in Style with MaxFlow

• Best Budget: Bellababy Double Pump

• Best Manual: Medela Manual Pump

What to Consider

There's a wide variety of pumps on the market, from a hospital-grade double electric, to a wearable breast pump, to manual pumps that are good for occasional pumping. and what you choose is largely personal preference, but it's important to choose one based on your needs and the needs of your baby, says certified lactation consultant, Abrie McCoy. She tells Best Products that pumping parents should "consider how you plan to use your pump. Will you be using it daily? Occasionally? Outlining these needs helps you to prioritize charging needs for the pump or even choose whether to opt for a wireless or traditional double electric pump."

Types of Pump

Double Electric Pump

This is probably what you think of when you're thinking about a pump. It's the standard pump with two pumps with tubing for suction that drain into bottles that you then store or pour into breast milk storage bags to freeze. They're typically the fastest, the most powerful, and the style of pump most covered by health insurers and FSA plans. Pumps such as the Spectra S1 are great if you have a private place to pump, and 20 or 30 minutes to devote to pumping each time. Working parents who have somewhere private to pump at work and stay-at-home breastfeeding parents are the parents who tend to buy these. And don't worry about being totally hands-on, there are hands-free pumping bras and bands you can get to hold the cups in place.

Wearable Breast Pumps

Wearable breast pumps such as the Willow are pumps that can be worn semi-discreetly in your bra, allowing you to move around while you're pumping. They have a smaller basin than many double electric pumps, so if you produce a lot (I personally felt like I could supply your average dairy farm when I had my first), you may need to stop halfway to empty the pump. That being said, they are easily the most-convenient breast pumps available, allowing you to be hands-off while you pump. I have known several teachers, nurses, and moms of multiples that absolutely swear by wearables.

Manual Breast Pumps

These are the breast pumps that have been around forever. They're handheld, hand-controlled, and honestly, it takes a lot of effort if you're doing it over and over in a day. However, for travel, for occasional use, and for cost? The manual pump like the Medela manual is a great choice. I have pumped in the backseat of the car with a manual pump so that I could feed my baby without stopping on long road trips. They're basic for a reason.

McCoy notes that once you've chosen what style you want, you will want to "consider the variety of pumps and their availability of flange sizes and parts that will need to be regularly replaced. Valves and membranes will need to be replaced most frequently." Replacement pieces that are too expensive or hard to find may be a dealbreaker for you.

Settings are also critical, how many settings does the pump have? "Different settings help to mimic and achieve different sucking patterns that your baby uses to elicit a letdown as well as effectively remove milk and drain your breast," says McCoy.

How We Chose

I spoke with a large group of breastfeeding parents and took an informal poll of which pump they used. I narrowed it down to the most popular pumps, and then I spoke with multiple users of each of those pumps, and had those pumps tested by parents who had never used them previously. The testers evaluated by comfort, quality, convenience, and the overall production element of the machines (speed of pumping, ease of use, ease of cleaning). I will tell you there was a clear winner for best overall, and a clear winner for best wearable, with the others on the list falling somewhere slightly behind those two.

When I knew who the winners were, I reached out to the experts at the winner for best wearable, and she's the lactation consultant quoted here. These breast pumps are great adds to baby registries, and they're widely available. There were breast pumps that were tested that were ultimately eliminated, such as the Medela Freestyle, which is a very good pump, but the cost and the benefits of that pump do not align.

S1 Plus Electric Breast Milk Pump for Baby Feeding

Hands-down, this was the top pick for breast pumps overall. The Spectra S1 is a hospital-grade breast pump that can be used as either a single or a double electric breast pump. It has a natural suction technology that mimics the actions of a baby's mouth to achieve the best let down and production overall. It has multple suction modes and even a "massage mode" that parents say "feels like a pulse, and is much easier to deal with when your breasts are sore."

The pump's feature that stood out to many parents is that it memorizes your pumping preferences and initializes them when you turn it on. It also has a night light, which is aces when you're pumping and trying to not wake your partner/baby/self.

The battery lasts for three hours, but the night light does drain the battery faster, and recharging takes a significant amount of time (8 to 12 hours according to our testers).

Parents love that it's a compact pump, hardly larger than a standard lunch box, but the power is immense. "You never feel like you're leaving milk in your breast," when you use the Spectra, according to parents.

Additional bottles and flanges (what look like the nipple suction cups) for the Spectra are easy to get on Amazon, and they're not overly expensive, with an entire kit costing under $30.

More: The Best Breast Milk Storage Bags

Wearable Breast Pump

Parents who have used more than one style of wearable breast pump chose the Willow because it's the least likely to leak, has the best suction, and the app is the easiest to use.

I will add that it is also the easiest to fit, with six different flange sizes available. That means that most parents will be able to use the Willow comfortably, getting a good suction and let down.

The pump itself has smaller basins, using 4-ounce disposable breast milk collection bags, but parents say that the convenience of wearing the pump around the house or at work, vastly outweighs that shortcoming.

Yes, you do look a bit like someone has given you comic-book size proportions when you're wearing them, but many moms told me that they just cover up with a big sweater or hoodie, but not all. It's not a secret you're pumping, and it's not shameful, so if someone wants to make a fuss or stare, that's their problem, not yours.

You control the suction and basically everything for this pump through the app, and it tracks your milk production, helps remind you when you may need to pump, and is just nice to have in general. It's an intuitive app, but the tutorial is well done. One parent, who works as an ER nurse told me that "I bend and move constantly in my job, and as long as my bra is firm enough, the milk stays put and so does the pump."

Pump in Style with MaxFlow

Chances are, if your insurance has a list of covered, reimbursable pumps, this one is on it. The Pump In Style With Maxflow by Medela has one thing going for it that most of the other pumps miss, and that is simplicity. There are few buttons to learn, and it's really just plug-in, stick-on, and pump.

The machine itself combines a powerful motor with maximum portability, which parents love. One parent told me "I can stick the whole thing in my mom purse, and you can't even tell it's there."

This is a step up from the Medela I used when I was pumping, but the basics are the same. The levels of suction are determined with a simple "+" and "=" buttons, and you can use it plugged into an AC adaptor or with the battery. It's a lot sleeker than it used to be, but the point of the pump isn't aesthetics, it's function, and the Pump in Style purports to help you pump up to 11% more per session, which more-or-less fits with what parents told me about how much they get per pump.

Double Electric Breast Pumps

Finding a quality double-electric breast pump for under $100 has long been impossible. In the past few years, smaller brands have been popping up, making pumping more affordable. Bellababy is one such brand.

It's a darned convenient pump according to our testers, with a strong, but not overwhelming suction; comfortable flanges, and a reasonably compact design.

It's a bit harder to clean than others on this list, and the controls "can be a bit dim" according to some testers, but for under $60, those small irritations feel minimal.

The nine levels of suction vary significantly between them, as do the four modes for let down, hind milk, minimal, and strong suctioning.

Parents love that the bottles are pretty interchangeable with most bottles that you could buy to pump into, and most of the available breast milk storage bags. If you're looking to save some money, or perhaps you're buying a second pump, or a pump you may not need for long and don't wish to splurge, the Bellababy is a good choice.

Manual breast pump with Flex Shields

Old faithful. It never lets you down when you're letting down. The Medela manual breast pump is the easiest, most ergonomic, and the most popular manual breast pump out there right now. It's simple, easy to clean, and the softer edges of the flanges make it a comfortable experience. Milking yourself does feel a bit strange at first, but a: it's natural, and b: hilarious when you accidentally pull off too quickly and get your partner right in the face with your supersoaker-strength spray.

The inner parts of the Medela manual pump are a bit of a pain to clean, but I have found that if you use a reusable straw cleaner that it makes the whole process much easier if you accidentally forget to clean it and it gets a bit gummed up.

It's only about $20, it's good to have one on hand if your other pump dies, or you forget to charge it, and it works.

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