Two months ago I promised Honeybun we would see the Nutcracker. Then, you know how it goes, life. And we made it to Christmas day and still hadn’t been. I knew Miami City Ballet continued touring after Christmas so I thought we were okay. Except we weren’t because the shows were basically sold out (only tickets left were singles scattered all over the theater, definitely not ideal for going with little girls.)
So I scoured the local theatre schedules to see what other ballets were coming and gave Honeybun the option to choose something else. She chose Sleeping Beauty. Cool. Then I realized the show is less than two weeks before we have to be back in Colorado for a wedding and my mom will already by gone and I don’t know when we are heading back. So, double mommy fail.
THEN the most amazing thing happened: I got an e-mail about a Russian touring group doing a “Tchaikovsky Spectacular” performance including excerpts from The Nutcracker, Swan Lake AND The Sleeping Beauty, perfect!
We made plans to go (Honeybun, Sugarplum, my mom, myself and of course Pipsqueak because he’s happy and quiet so long as a boob is around). We all got dressed up and headed to the theatre.
I don’t get out much these days to any place that requires more than jeans so when I get the chance to wear some of my nicer clothes, I take it! I have the problem, though, that I don’t have a ton of nicer clothes that are easy to nurse in. For this trip, I decided on a mint green silk button front shirt. A favorite from before I had kids (yes, most of my clothes are that old!)
BAD IDEA! I quickly learned that silk and babies don’t mesh well and here’s why:
Baby Fluids
Babies are just tiny little mess making machines. There’s the drool, the spit up, the tears and when breastfeeding a curious baby at a ballet performance, the inevitable milk dribble from a baby who is hungry but not so hungry he can’t rip of the boob every few minutes to take a peek at the show. And water stains silk. A lot.
Buttons
I’m all for simplicity when nursing so usually go for a comfy tank and top that easily pulls down or to the side (I’m not a shirt lifter, personally). But buttons are cool too, right? No, they are not. Because you have to undo them to feed. Then you have to redo them when you’re done. And if baby falls asleep while feeding, it’s nearly impossible to get to the buttons to redo them.
Plus silk doesn’t stretch so you have to undo WAY more buttons than with a slightly stretchy button front shirt.
And if you don’t feed enough, the boobs get too full, and the buttons aren’t always keen to stay closed and you end up with that really awesome “you’re too voluptuous for your shirt” popped middle button look.
Bra
I’m all for the comfy tank but just can’t do it under something as nice as a silk shirt. So I’m stuck wearing a real bra. Which is seriously the worst.
Plus real bras are much more unwieldy than soft tanks. The cups are more structured and so harder to pull down and out of the way so milk dribble is more likely to occur.
And again, once those boobs fill to capacity, you’ll be busting out of your bra and silk does not hide anything. Bra lines, anyone?
Sag
I’m no spring chicken, but I’m not an old lady yet either, but my boobs have been through a lot. Four pregnancies and over six years of breastfeeding later, my boobs just don’t have the perk I think they once did (truthfully, I can’t remember that long ago) and they just don’t fit as nicely into my more structured clothes as they used to (or I’m just really bad at wearing bras now).
By the end of the show, I looked like I’d been through hell and back and was showing off WAY more than I would have preferred, but my sweet little guy was contentedly sleeping and I enjoyed the show. But lesson learned, that beautiful shirt will be off to the dry cleaner with hubby’s next load and it will then stay comfy in my closet until my breastfeeding days are done!
What other clothes have you found to be incompatible with breastfeeding?
