Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've owned three of these aspirators (first one I gave away, second one pooped out after over 20 years of use, and I just received my third) and it has been extremely useful, especially since all three of my infants had a lot of congestion during their first few weeks of life. As a caveat I have never used the nasal suction straw things because I think it's sort of gross and you need two people to pull it off. So I guess I'm comparing this to the traditional rubber aspirator which is minimally effective at best. I feel so bad for the people who have found this item unhelpful and frustrating so I feel compelled to offer a couple of tips: 1) Sometimes this aspirator is sold with only the thick tip (for some reason I remember it being sold with the thin one before). The thin tip is A LOT more useful for tiny nasal passageways. These tips can be found separately for about $5 for 4 (2 of each type of tip). I'm not sure if this model is going out of production but I was able to find tips at babiesrus. 2) Use saline drops or a tiny bit of breastmilk to loosen the mucus. 3) Most importantly point the tip straight into the baby's face (think 90 degree angle) --- the nasal cavity actually goes more back than upwards. If you point this tip up the nose, it ends up just sucking on skin inside the nose (which is uncomfortable) and not the mucus. If you point it towards the back of the baby's head you get more stuff out. 4) sometimes it doesn't look like you get much out but if you suck up some running water after use, you can see if it was effective or not (though it can look pretty nasty so brace yourself). 5) be careful not to lose any of the washers because they are essential (these are the rubbery rings). You can purchase replacements from the graco website but it's annoying to pay for shipping (I actually got a couple at once since I knew I would be having more kids and using the aspirator for a while). Hope this helps!