Meet Sara, our newest Hourglassy contributor, who contacted us in December when she was “8 months prego and trying to get ahead on shopping for nursing bras.” She told us, “I would love to contribute to nursing bra reviews if you’d be interested.” Of course we were interested, and we know you will be, too.
How to wear a bathing suit and breastfeed my baby… As someone who was a 32DDDD before pregnancy I knew this wasn’t going to be easy.
Friends recommended bathing suits that worked for them, but with a small band size and rather large cup size I have yet to find a bathing suit that comes in my size that was made for breastfeeding. Fortunately there are bikinis made in bra sizes that fit me, and with Figleaves offering to gift a suit in exchange for a review I jumped at the chance to try the Figleaves Castaway Underwire Plunge Bikini Top.
The Castaway Underwire Plunge is very flattering, with a bit of a pin-up vibe. It is bra sized, has an underwire, a v detail in the center bra band, and wider, comfortable straps. Figleaves has it listed as padded but I think of it more as lined, and there are no pads in the lining. I tried this suit in a 34F (UK sizes), with cup size fluctuations through the day due to nursing it is hard for me to evaluate how true to size it is. It does feel secure on and I was able to hold my babe in the pool without feeling like he would pull it down. The top edge of the cup did roll slightly under his body-weight on land, but did not even reveal its lining. I felt secure in this top and have happily worn with friends and family.
I paired this top with the Figleaves Tailor Fold Stripe Bikini Bottom which I liked a lot. As a post-partum woman I was looking for a bikini bottom that was comfortable, would stay up while I cared for my babe, and perhaps would even be flattering? I wanted a fold-over waistband to help smooth over the difference between my hip and waist sizes. Plus I wanted to be able to wear it folded down or up depending on if I had a few moments to sunbathe or if I was bending down to change a diaper.
These bottoms worked well for all of these reasons. Plus the fold-over section is basically two layers of the swim material, no power-mesh but still some support.
I would highly recommend these bottoms, or a fold-over waistband for post-partum women.
I received the Figleaves Castaway Underwire Plunge Bikini Top D-GG in a UK 34F, US 34G, and the Figleaves Tailor Fold Stripe Bikini Bottom in a UK 16, US 12 (these links and the ones throughout are affiliate links). I will note that I made a basic mistake when ordering, I chose the top in “Ink” and the bottom in “Black Stripe”… it turns out “Ink” meant Navy, so my separates don’t perfectly match. Whoopsie. 🙂
I want to note that the downside to not finding a proper breastfeeding bathing suit is that I do need to slide my shoulder strap down to feed, and then back up when I am done. I still do daydream about finding a bra-sized suit, with nursing clips, in my size, but I am happy to settle for good support and a flattering cut.
Happy National Breast-feeding/Chest-feeding week!
