Fundamentally I am bone idle. If I can get away with not doing something then I will. Which is probably (despite all the other far more valid reasons) why that I exclusively breast feed my baby. All that sterilizing just seems like quite hard work.
Which is why, even though Tommee Tippee sent me their Closer to Nature Electric Breast Pump to review months ago, I have only just got around to using it. Even then it was only the lure of a big night out without a baby that motivated me to actually get on with it. (note to self, you are not covering yourself with glory here, not only idle but are motivated only by the promise of alcohol and child free evenings - not looking good)
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Previous attempts at pumping (with earlier babies) had met with doom laden failure. I had used a hand pump and utterly resented every moment spent sitting on the sofa feeling, well, just a bit bovine. It took hours for very little result.
The Electric Breast Pump was different. Easy to put together, plug in and we were away. I have to say it felt a bit bizarre, not uncomfortable at all but a bit odd, and it certainly got the milk out and was far more efficient than the hand pump used previously. There are three different settings, it was certainly nice to start off with the gentlest one and then ramp it up as I felt more confident that my nipple was going to come through the experience unscathed (which it did, thank you for asking). It comes with a sterilizer, which doubles us as a convenient place to store all the bits and pieces, which I thought was a well thought through touch.
Much of the casing is in a solid white which does mean it takes a while of pumping before you can see any visible results (as the milk is working its way through the pump into the bottle), which was a little disconcerting to a new pumper.
With the breast pump comes some Closer to Nature bottles and other breast feeding paraphernalia. Sam had no problems using the bottles, but he isn't a fussy baby on that front so I wasn't surprised.
Tommee Tippee had also sent us a microwave sterilizer which does the job well enough. Bit difficult to get excited about sterilizers, but I prefer microwave ones to electric ones as we don't have much storage space in our kitchen and it just lives in the microwave. Plenty of room to sterilize all sorts, from bottles and breast pumps to dummies and other random things, it just takes a few minutes and works exactly as I would expect.
Many thanks to Tommee Tippee for allowing us to review their products, and for their patience in waiting for me to actually use them.
RRP for the Electric Breast Pump: £89.99 (but it is possible to find it at a cheaper price, here for example).
THIS IS A REVIEW POST FOR WHICH I RECEIVED A TOMMEE TIPPEE CLOSER TO NATURE ELECTRIC BREAST PUMP, MICROWAVE STERLIZER AND BOTTLES TO REVIEW, FREE OF CHARGE.