Review: Willow 3.0

Willow started it all, at least when it comes to wearable breast pumps.

I remember seeing the first version of Willow’s wearable breast pumps at CES 2017. It was one of the buzziest devices to come out of the show, and while I was years from ever needing one, I was thrilled to see something that would make future motherhood a little easier.

Years later, here I am, finally trying wearable breast pumps left and right, which includes the third generation of the original Willow breast pump. It has one of the highest price tags on the market, but also does some of the coolest tricks out of any pump I’ve tried. I’m genuinely impressed.

“Smart” is overused these days. Many times it just means that something can connect to the internet, even though smart should mean that the software within the product can come to independent conclusions to improve your life. For example, the Nest smart thermostat heats or cools your home based on your schedule, or where you live.

Photograph: Willow

The Willow 3.0 has sensors built into it to sense when milk is expressed, so it will switch over from stimulation (a gentler mode) to expression (a stronger mode), all on its own. Most pumps that do this on their own switch around two minutes by default, or you have to switch it yourself manually. It’s nice to be able to pop the Willow on and know it will switch over by itself at the right time for your body, rather than just because of a timer.

The Willow also measures how much milk is expressed while in use, so you can check the app to see how much you’re pumping. I found it to be shockingly accurate—it was always within a quarter of an ounce of what the app told me was pumped. And it didn’t let my past pumping results influence what it thought I had pumped, either. It told me once I had only managed to pump 0.7 ounces on one side and 0.4 on the other, and when I removed the pump and checked the ounces in my regular Lasinoh bottle, I found those results to be painfully correct.

It’s good that the Willow is so accurate because you can’t see into the pump at all. Unlike other wearable pumps, including Willow’s own Willow Go (8/10, WIRED Recommends), the milk container isn’t visible at all for you to check your progress, so you’re dependent on the app to tell you how your session is going.

Unfortunately, you need to follow steps precisely to use it.

To use it, you have to let it “latch” onto the breast and create a seal, and you have to properly de-latch it by turning off the suction and using a finger to pop the seal—not unlike what you would do for a small baby while nursing. The Willow app will guide you through this, but I often found myself coming back to the instructions to do it correctly. And it's more difficult to pop off and rearrange the pump if you didn't get the angle right the first time.

When you're done pumping, it's not as simple as other pumps where you just remove the pump and then remove the milk. You have to do a step the brand calls "flip to finish" that requires you to take the pump, flip the dial on the top to close the air vent, hold the pump flat so that the shield (where the breast was placed) faces directly upward, rotate it around so the thumbpad faces you, and then tilt the Willow slowly as you listen to the tubing suction any leftover milk from the shield into the milk bag or reusable milk container inside of the pump.

Photograph: Willow

Sound complicated? It is, and if you mess it up you can end up spilling milk (though it shouldn't be much milk, as it's only what's left in the shield and tubing). I found myself opening the app to get the instructions to make sure I got it right, and once I did forget and spilled some milk in my kitchen. (No, I didn't cry over it, but I did consider it.)

The Willow works this way because by default, it comes with O-shaped milk bags that you place inside the pump before your session. It then seals the bag shut when your session is over, with every drop of milk you pumped. And while that's handy, especially if you want to pop your milk straight into the freezer, the O-shaped bags weren't the easiest to get the milk out of, and there was always a little milk stuck in the bag's various crevices.

There's also a reusable container you can use instead, which worked well (and still required you to flip to finish). I was worried it would be hard to clean since it's also an O-shaped item, but the middle pops out to make it much easier to clean after you pump. And it's dishwasher safe, too. But you will need to have somewhere to pour the milk into after using the reusable container (such as a baby bottle or freezer bag) since it's not designed to store milk outside of the pump.

Willow sells more accessories than other wearable pump makers. I tried Willow's pumping bras, which have a clip to lower the bra cup, place the pump, and then re-attach the cup on a lower clip to secure the pump in place. It's similar to a nursing bra, and while they weren't more secure than my other nursing bras, I did find them comfortable to wear in general.

The Willow 3.0 is on the heavy side, and it's large, too. With the silky Willow bras, I found the pump tended to pop upward out of the bra rather than stay in place. I preferred pairing it with a nursing sports bra that had larger, more secure bra cups to hold it in place and keep it from slipping around.

Willow also sells a variety of flanges for the Willow 3.0 (learn more about why flanges and size are important in our guide to choosing a breast pump.) When you purchase the Willow, you're prompted at checkout to choose your size, and lots of sizes are available. While that might seem annoying at the moment, it's much better to learn your size early and order it right the first time. Other pump makers, such as Elvie, don't prompt you to do this, and you won't find out if you have the right size until after you unbox it and then have to purchase a separate accessory.

Finally, another extra of the Willow is the Apple Watch app. The pump syncs with the phone app to tell you how long you've been pumping at a glance. It was nice, but sometimes a little delayed. It did inspire me to just use an Apple Watch timer for pumps that didn't have a timer, like the Imani i2 (7/10, WIRED Recommends), to get a similar experience.

Overall, the Willow 3.0 is a fantastic pump. It has better features than other, similarly expensive wearable pumps. But it's up to you to decide whether it's worth splurging for a few conveniences, when you'll pump just as much milk with a cheaper choice.