No breastfeeding mother knows how long she is going to nurse. Many nursing moms have an idea or goal of how long they would like to nurse, of how old she would like her child to be, but I would imagine very few have a hard deadline in mind - no nursing after this point. Some moms don't get the chance to nurse very long, and I applaud their efforts for trying. I have been nursing (the same child) for almost 33 months now, which may be the flip side of that coin. I love nursing my daughter, and I feel confident knowing that I am giving her the most nutritious food that is designed just for her little body. She's growing awesomely, getting smarter and bigger everyday, so I don't regret the choice. I never expected to be nursing this long, though. I honestly didn't give it much thought while I was pregnant, and before I was pregnant, I didn't consider it at all. I knew I wanted to nurse, and when it worked out, I kept at it. I pumped for about a year, and now, I'm just plain nursing when I'm home with my baby. I've been through six different sets of nursing bras; the set from right after my pregnancy, when I was bigger in the chest, a smaller set for when I lost the pregnancy weight (it went fairly quickly), a third set when I hit my pre-pregnancy equilibrium, a fourth set to replace the third that I just plain wore out, a fifth replacement to replace the fourth, and sixth after my size shrunk yet again. Each time I purchase new nursing bras, I wonder, maybe this will be the last set! And then it isn't. Someday, I will be able to purchase shirts without considering how easily I can expose one or both of my breasts (my daughter is a twiddler). That day does not appear to be soon, though, so I expect that this September, I will start my third year of nursing. That is a long time to be relying on camis and cardis alone.
Lately, I've been wondering--doesn't anyone make cute nursing wear? The majority of my nursing wardrobe consists of camisoles from Lane Bryant and frankly, cheapie camis (under $5 a piece) from Amazon, and v-neck tees from Old Navy. I have a few camis, shirts, and dresses from Motherhood Maternity, but I mostly wear them at home as pajamas - they don't make the cut as business wear. I wear my nursing bras to work even though I'm not pumping anymore because when I get home, my daughter likes to nurse immediately and I don't get the chance to change my clothes. If I try, she cries, so I oblige. The shirts I wear to work are not so nursing-friendly, so I'm often pulling up the hemlines and exposing my belly. When I was pumping, luckily I had a completely private and lockable nursing room, and I would just take off my shirt, or sometimes even my dress if I needed. It was a single-occupancy room, so I was lucky. I would still wear pumping- or nursing-friendly clothing when I could, though, simply because it saved time not to have to undress and redress. Looking back, though, this a big chunk of my life to have such limited wardrobe options, and this is just for my first child. If I have another baby anytime soon, or more than one, I could easily spend a quarter of my life nursing and dealing with inconvenient clothing in the process.
With that in mind, I have compiled a list of retailers that sell nursing gear with the hopes of giving some desparate moms more places to look for fun and fashionable clothing.
