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Boobs and Babies: Thoughts on Full Busted Nursing Bras

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Hello!! I have been wanting to do a post for ages, and every time I sat down at my computer after tidying up after the baby or doing the laundry, he’d, of course, wake up from his nap. Without fail. And suddenly here I am, with a precious 9 month old son and feeling very guilty for having abandoned my blog!

So, first things first, a pic of the little guy:

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I’m soaking up all the mom moments and loving watching him go from a tiny little thing who conked out every few minutes to a wild bundle of energy racing around the apartment to find everything he’s not supposed to touch! Every parent says they grow up quickly, but I didn’t realize how fast it all would happen until all these milestones started piling up one on top of the next and I started packing away the 4th big bin of clothes. Sniff…

So, onto something boob-related…NURSING!

To be honest, I was very non-commmittal about the whole thing going in. I had heard about all these horrible sounding things like clogged ducts and mastitis, not to mention engorgement (bigger boobs??? Are you kidding? How could they grow any more than my 9 month bra size??). But I thankfully and luckily didn’t have trouble getting going at the hospital with the wonderful nurses who showed me the ropes and reassured me when I couldn’t tell if I was getting the latch right. With a good supply and a hungry little guy we were off and, somehow, now coming up to the 1 year birthday when I can wean him to milk when we’re ready.

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One of many nursing comas on the Boppy in the early days

But despite an easy nursing relationship with two minor hiccups (2 clogged ducts I resolved on my own following tips on the amazing Kellymom), I gotta be honest. The thing that was the biggest hurdle was finding nursing bras in my size that made me feel good, and reading June’s recent post about this brought all those feelings right back. I wanted to wait to post about nursing bras until I found ones I loved so I could help provide solutions, but the options were scarce in my cup/band combo. I don’t want to scare anyone away from nursing for fear of this, though–honestly, this issue made me dig in my heels even more to figure out a solution, because, as my hormones would have said if they could have: Damn if I’m going to stop feeding my child because the bra options for me are scarce! Whatever, bra companies!

Hormone-rant aside, if you’re in the middle range of the full-busted cup continuum, don’t worry; there are some good options, like Anita, which guest poster Patricia mentioned here, and June is on the case to find even more. They may not be the most beautiful bras in the world but they do the job.

But if you cross up into the higher end of the cup range with a small band, where I found myself (I think around a 30J/JJ until recently; allowing for fitting-myself error, as I probably overestimated the cup to avoid wires touching my breast tissue for fear of mastitis), the options include soft bras by Royce, Freya, Panache and one Cake Lingerie option (Cheesecake) and for underwires, going out on a limb with a special order Ewa Michalak. None of the soft cups gave me enough support with my heavy nursing boobs, and I was super droopy in them. My Ewa special order I’ll tackle separately, but I couldn’t use them.

The best solution I found for myself?

Making my own. Even with my remedial sewing machine skills, I knocked one out in an hour. If you’ve sewn more recently than 15 years ago, you’ll probably be done much faster. I followed these two tutorials at Hourglassy and Venusian Glow and made my Panache Jasmine (I liked it because of the stretch lace at the top–great for cup fluctuation between feedings–and the closer-set cups and bigger cup range than the Andorra) a nursing workhorse.

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Next time around, my strategy will be to order this bra or one in a similar style in sizes one to two cup sizes up prior to having the baby, try them on when possible and return the sizes that don’t work (I *cover my nips* with Bandaids when trying on bras while nursing to avoid unfortunate leaking and return issues!) and tackle the alterations when I can. A lot of sites give you 60 days to return so you can get through that engorgement period and see what size you settle into.

Also: some Nordstrom’s will do nursing bra alterations. My experience was that the alterations department chose which bras they’d turn into nursing bras and there weren’t very many. The department manager did her best with their available stock and what the alterations department could do, and had them take an Elomi Caitlyn 34J and cut 3″ off the back and add nursing bra clasps. The uplift was better, but the cups were huge and the wires wrapped around onto my back, giving me a very wide east-west look and eventually bruising me… It was better than the soft wires but not as good as my own alterations, which were cheaper to do than Nordstrom, which charged for the band and the nursing bra alterations for a grand total of $35 per bra. As usual, the customer service from Nordstrom’s was wonderful and the manager was incredibly sweet and encouraging about finding a solution.

Hopefully I will be able to post more in the coming months. I don’t think I’ll be writing on a regular schedule, but we’ll see how it goes!

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