When you’re exclusively pumping, your breast pump can feel like a ball and chain. The Baby Buddha breast pump is a great mobility pump that can give you a lot more freedom while still getting your pumping sessions in! Here’s a complete Baby Buddha review.
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What is the Baby Buddha?
The Baby Buddha is a great mobility pump.
One of the hardest things about exclusively pumping is feeling tied down. A lot of breast pumps – especially those covered by insurance – need to be plugged into an outlet while you’re using them.
And even if your pump doesn’t need to be plugged in, a larger pump can leave you more or less stuck in one place because you can’t just put it in your pocket while you get stuff done.
The Baby Buddha pump has a rechargeable battery, and is super small! It comes with a lanyard, so you can hang it around your neck, or you could easily fit it into a pocket.
Baby Buddha gave us a special discount referral code for you guys – you can get 10% off with the code EPM10!
What are the advantages of the Baby Buddha pump?
Here are some of the pros of getting this pump.
1. Mobility
Because it’s small and has a built-in battery, you aren’t tied to an outlet. You can move around easily with the pump around your neck or in your pocket.
2. It’s strong and effective
It’s one of the few mobility pumps that is as strong and powerful as a standard pump.
Many exclusive pumpers in our Facebook group use it as their primary pump.
3. Different pumping pattern
The Baby Buddha has a slightly different pattern to pumping that some people prefer and find more effective – in letdown mode, it does 10 “short pulls” followed by one “long pull.”
What are the disadvantages of this pump?
There are also a few cons to consider.
1. It’s mobile, but still has tubing
While you can walk around and get things done with this pump, it’s not wireless and does still have tubing to deal with.
2. Noise level
It’s not the quietest pump if noise is a concern.
How to use the Baby Buddha
This pump is really simple to use, and there aren’t a lot of buttons that you need to get familiar with. There’s just the on button and a roller ball that controls mode and suction level.
Adjusting mode
Like most breast pumps, the Baby Buddha has two modes: letdown (sometimes called massage) mode and expression mode.
Most people start the pump off in letdown mode for a few minutes and then switch to expression mode after their milk lets down.
However, others find it works better to use one or the other for longer. As stated above, the Baby Buddha is a little different from other breast pumps in that every few “pulls” in letdown mode is a longer pull. Experiment and see what works best for you!
To change the mode, just press the roller ball.
Adjusting suction
The Baby Buddha has 6 different settings for suction strength in letdown mode and 9 in expression mode. You can roll the roller ball up to increase suction or down to decrease suction.
You can see more of how to use it in the below stories:
Can you use the Baby Buddha as a primary pump?
Yes. The suction on the Baby Buddha is strong enough to work as a primary pump for pumping at work or for exclusively pumping.
In the past, the suction has been too strong for some people, and they found they needed gentler suction. To address this, Baby Buddha recently changed their pump to add an additional suction level that would be more comfortable for those moms, and they also slightly reduced the length of the “long pull.”
Hacking the Baby Buddha to use other pump parts
Because the Baby Buddha is often purchased as a second pump, many parents want to use their existing pump parts with their Baby Buddha pump. Here are some ways you can do that.
1. Using Baby Buddha with Freemie Cups
One option is to use the Baby Buddha pump with closed system Freemie collection cups.
Here’s how this can look if you want to pump while you’re out and about:
Here’s how one person put these together:
She connected her Baby Buddha pump to Bella Baby tubing, and then to her closed-system Freemies.
You can also use Legendairy Milk collection cups with this pump.
Want to check these out? Legendairy Milk reached out and gave me a discount code – take 15% off with the code EPUMP!
2. Medela Pump Parts
You can also use Medela pump parts with the Baby Buddha. Here’s how I did it with the closed system parts used with the Medela Pump in Style with Max Flow:
You can also do this with older, open-style Medela pump parts (such as those used with the the Pump in Style Advanced). You just need to attach a backflow protector to prevent milk getting into the tubing – more on how to do this here.
3. Motif Luna/Spectra Pump Parts
You can do something similar with Motif Luna pump parts.
Here, I removed the white tubing connector from the Baby Buddha tubing, and then attached the tubing to the Motif Luna backflow protector.
Baby Buddha Discount Code
Baby Buddha gave us a special discount referral code for you guys – you can get 10% off with the code EPM10!
The Baby Buddha consistently gets good reviews in our Facebook group, and I think it’s a great investment for exclusive pumpers to be more free of the “ball and chain.”
If price is an issue and you have an FSA or HSA, you should be able to use those funds to buy the pump.
Do you have a Baby Buddha breast pump? Share your Baby Buddha review in the comments!
