Breastfeeding Clothing

Hi! If you wear dresses a lot like me, look for the ones with stretchy gathers around the bustline. They easily move for nursing, you can layer a nursing tank under, and you will be able to wear them as nursing burns those extra calories.

Buy a pack of shelf-bra camisols from Costco and wear them under your regular shirts. It's the cheapest way to go!

D.,
Congrats on your decision to BF your sweet baby!
We are almost to 20 mo & still loving our nursing relationship =)
I was THRILLED when I saw expensive brands of nursing shirts barely worn on Craigslist for anywhere from $2-$5 & I stocked up! Look daily if you can..
It will get easier & I find anything goes now.
I love what the lady said about its all about attitude. We are feeding a baby for goodness sake & I honestly get a kick out of making comments to rude people. Let them stare, I am personally offended when people are formula feeding their baby in public, lol!

The only nursing clothing I have purchased were nursing tanks and I love them. I wear them under shirts instead of a nursing bra or by themselves when I'm just hanging around the house. I nurse in public quite often and the one thing that I really recommend is a nursing cover. I have two from Peanut Shell (bought it at Babies R Us), one to keep downstairs in my home daycare where I nurse 3 times daily and one to keep in my diaper bag so I'm never without it in public. The Peanut Shell cover is very large so it covers you from both sides, your tummy that's exposed when you pull your shirt up and leaves lots of room to maneuver too. There's an adjustable strap for around your neck, 2 inner pockets for nursing pads or binkies or whatever and it has a stiff piece of plastic inside the top to keep it away from the baby's face. Unlike using a blanket to cover up, you can just look down and see what the baby is doing. With my Peanut Shell, I've nursed in restaurants, at an outside cafe table, on an airplane, in the car (PARKED!) and in front of the dad's of my daycare kids. I highly recommend them to anyone planning on nursing!

I layer my clothes a tank that I can flip myself out of and a shirt on top so I can lift that. That way my breast is covered on top by the over shirt and my stomach is covered by the tank!!! If I don't layer I wear a low cut shirt and just pull myself out, and cover up with a light blanket or nursing cover... I CANNOT BELIEVE I WASTED MY MONEY on breastfeeding bras again! I mostly use, sports bras but I just went to Dillard's and splurged on 3 non nursing bras that fit me really well. I just pull myself out of them. no problem.

I've nursed 2 kids and will be nursing our 3rd soon. My experience with special nursing garments wasn't all that positive. I found the nursing shirts to not be all that stylish and some were even more difficult to manage. I did like the nursing camis though. While nursing my 2 I just bought a few larger t-shirts so that I could easily pull them up to nurse, and made sure I had button up the front shirts dresses too when I wanted a less casual look. If wearing a shirt with front buttons, it's more modest to unbutton from the bottom up when nursing. Best wishes and congrats on your decision to give your baby the best food on earth. R. Nurse-midwife now happily married SAHM of 2.

After wearing the SAME materity clothes for all four pregnancies I would allow myself to really spurlge on nursing wear after each baby. The new clothes were a great pickk me up when I wasn't back into my normal sized clothes yet.

I adored the clothes from Motherwear.com. I still wear lots of the tops and I haven't nursed in 4+ years now. Check out the site, they really don't look like nursing clothes at all (the tell-tale "bib" front or side buttons etc.) and they helped me to nurse descretely in most public situations.

I never bought it but I have heard of a mom-invented shirt out there that you put on under your shirt and it has a cut out over the breast area so when you are nursing in public, you can lift your shirt and not expose your mid-section. I can't remember what it was called but you could probably google it. As for t-shirts, I would just buy a few bigger ones because you will probably lose the weight fast, especially if you are breastfeeding. It is not easy to nurse in public because there are not many places made for it. If you are at the mall, you can use the "women's lounge" in the bathroom at Nordstroms and other department stores. I've done that a few times. You could always go into a changing room if you had to. If not you could just nurse covered up in a low traffic area. Good luck!

For me, buttondown shirts worked pretty well. I had a difficult time nursing in public though. When nursing one side, the other side would leak through the nursing pad and onto my shirt and bra. So, I had to end up putting an extra rolled up cloth diaper under my other side to catch the leaks. But I did nurse in a parked car and womens lounge in a dept. store when I needed to. Good luck !

I bought a really nice/comfortable/supportive nursing tank that I lived in the first 6 months or so around the house. When I went out, I just wore my tops that fit and carried my "hooter hider" to nurse.

I didn't feel very comfortable in the nursing tops from Motherhood and they were really expensive too. Too may flaps and holes and they shrunk when washed. Surprisingly, the nursing bra I liked best was from Walmart and only cost like $12. I wore it under regular tops or button down shirts for easy access. For public outings, I brought along The Ultimate Receiving Blanket which is a very large but lightweight blanket that you can drape over your shoulder for privacy and not worry about getting too warm or the blanket falling down. A lot of stores (Arrowhead Mall, Ikea, etc) have nursing rooms with rocking chairs so you can nurse privately and comfortably which helped a lot when I was still getting the hang of things with my first baby. Best wishes and congrats on your new baby! :)

http://www.toysrus.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=u...

A Phoenix mom created a nursing tank top that helps extend the "regular shirt" inventory a nursing mom already has. Check it out: http://www.raisingarizonakids.com/index.php?page=1.librar...

Check out Motherwear.com They have wonderful nursing tops with a double panel in front! There are sales and deals all the time too!

I just got bigger clothing mostly. I really love the motherwear company but I just can't afford really nice nursing clothes, though I think they are worth it if you can afford it. So much easier. I just used blanket and bigger shirts mostly.

I just used my regular clothing, but always carried a nursing cover along with me. I know some women are comfortable just nursing in public without a cover, but I liked to feel a little more private and enjoyed the nursing session just being between me and my baby.
There is a great cover on the deal a day site, Baby Half Off (www.babyhalfoff.com) today (53% off retail)!

So far my favorite nursing items are from:

http://www.skinies.com/ (this one can make any of you regular shirts into a nursing shirt and it has a tummy taming panel :))

http://www.glamourmom.com/ (best nursing tanks)

http://www.boobdesign.com/boob_eng.html (their stuff is a little more expensive but so comfortable and cute)

My baby is almost 7 months now and I have to admit that I am regretting not buying more nice shirts to wear while breastfeeding because OH am I tired of wearing the same things! I had gone from a C to an E while nursing so have really not been able to wear much from my pre-pregnancy days. i wore my maternity shirts the first few months and now i'm wearing the few larger shirts that i had from before. I bought one special nursing shirt and while I like it, I don't know if it is actually easier to nurse in than many other shirts. any shirts that i can pull up easily or pull down easily have been good. I tried a nursing cover but it felt too unnatural and even more obvious than just going ahead and nursing - I did find scarves/wraps useful though because i could just drape them naturally over wherever I needed some coverage. In the end though, I would recommend that you go ahead and get a few larger shirts to fit your new larger size - I wish I had done that in the beginning to get more use out of them. I thought my boobs would decrease after the first few months but nope! Enjoy nursing!!!!

I found that for the first few months most of my maternity shirts worked well (mostly t-shirts). The extra material covered me and fit around me. When my tummy got small enough, then normal shirts worked pretty well. With my first I was much more worried about being covered than I was with my second. (For the first month or two or three- it is really helpful to be able to see the baby - as they need the help to get to the right position.)
I tried using a blanket over me, but that usually was a royal pain.
Nursing in your car is really private - someone would REALLY have to be looking to see anything.
Are you worried about your comfort, or not offending people around you? (Only my mom has commented when I was nursing in public (at a wedding reception), she thought it was something to be more hidden. (The other people at the reception did not comment at all.))

Mostly I have found that the right attitude goes a long way. :) The attitude is "My baby is hungry, I am going to feed him/her - don't look if it bothers you."
That said - I do try to find a quiet corner, or somewhere slightly out of the way to nurse. (On a shelf in between items at Costco (it was comfortable, and the right height!), next to clothing racks at stores with clothing racks, in my car....) I don't go to public bathrooms, and I have not gone to fitting rooms - as bathrooms are gross, and fitting rooms are boring. (More fun for mom to look around while little one is nursing.)

Anyway. You asked a simple question, and here you got a epic in response. :) Hopefully something of this is helpful. :)

I didnt know there was special clothes for nursing. Im just wearing my regular shirts. I always nurse in public, just make sure your boob is covered. I havent been able to use a blanket because my son hates to be covered so he yanks it off.

One of my favorites was from Japanese Weekend. They are expensive, but have good sales. One of my other favorites was not a nursing shirt at all. It was a trendy shirt that had a second layer over the front. I just cut a slit in the lower layer & voila!
As far as nursing in public, neither of my two would nurse with a cover over their heads, so I just practiced until I got pretty good at latching them on without giving the world a show. Once they are latched on, it's not a problem. It also got way easier once I was past that initial "leaky" phase & didn't need nursing pads.

When I was pregnant then through breast feeding I bought clothes from www.motherhood.com. THey have a wide selection for a reasonable price. That is the only clothing they sell and their clothes aren't ugly like most of the ones in the store. I did also buy bigger shirts. Another option is that my mother found this breast feeding scarf that was square in the back then split down the middle on the rest and covered me completely. I wish I knew where she got it but look for that too.

I wear nursing camisoles rather then nusring bras and I also were shirts that are loose but my size....they are actually in style these days! The camisole covers your tummy so nothing is exposed or hanging out. I have good luck at Old Navy for tops that are cute and comfortable for nursing.

I bought a couple nursing shirts from thrift shops in town....mostly though, just big t-shirts worked best IMO. Esp. as the baby gets a little older, it's much easier to tuck him/her inside of a loose t-shirt to eat than it is to try to get the openings on the shirt to stay in the right spot to cover up, while the little one's wiggling around.

I wore a lot of tank tops under an un-buttoned button down shirt (one of my husbands). Then you can lift the tank and cover with the overshirt to be discrete.

With my first I had nursing tops. with my little one now, I was recommened to buy mens tank undershirts wear under my shirts and all I had to do was lift my top shirt and pull the arm hold of the undershirt over and was abel to nurse. It was a way to keep your belly/skin covered.