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Oh my gosh, it’s been ages since I (Leah) wrote a post! As regular readers will know (if there are any of you left), I had a baby a little over a year ago. So I’m sure you can understand why I haven’t been blogging. I’m working from home full-time (well, as full-time as I can) while caring for Baby Girl during the day. My husband’s WFH too, but his hours are more demanding since he has a “real” job while I’m a freelancer and can set my own hours. As such, writing has been last on my list of priorities. But now that our routine is pretty consistent, I’m hoping I can get back into it at least a little.
Since Darlene and Jen aren’t writing any more, I won’t be titling my posts “Off the Rack” going forward, just to save space on the page. But I’ll still be using it as a category, so you can click on it if you want to find all of my back posts.
So let’s talk about pumping bras! Pre-pregnancy, I was wearing size 30G (UK). During pregnancy, I got all the way up to 30J. Now I’m hovering around 30HH. I’m still nursing a few times a day, though, so it’s possible my size will shrink down a bit more once the nursing completely stops.
In addition to nursing, I had to spend quite a bit of time pumping early on to build up a freezer stash of breastmilk. Originally, I didn’t have a pumping bra at all, but it was incredibly annoying and stressful trying to pump while holding the flanges in place, especially since Baby Girl wouldn’t sleep without being held for the first 4 months. I had been gifted a second-hand Kindred Bravely bra by a thoughtful Hourglassy reader in size small-busty, but the cups were too small even before my bra size increased. No surprise there since the size chart lists “busty” as fitting up to US H cups (UK FF) while I was above that at the time. Keep reading to learn what I eventually did, but in the meantime…
Recently, Kindred Bravely introduced a “super busty” size. Even though I’m not pumping any more, I wanted to try it and figured I could just use it as a regular nursing bra. Plus it was on sale and qualified to buy with FSA or HSA (two types of medical insurance spending accounts in the US). So I bought the Sublime Hands-Free Pumping & Nursing Bra in size small-super busty, which is supposed to fit up to a US K-cup.
Unfortunately, the bra is still too small in the cups, which I guess makes sense since a US K is only a UK H, but I had hoped it would still work since it’s stretchy and wireless. But unfortunately, it just flattened my boobs and mashed them together into a uniboob. I also had uncontained side-boob, and the side sling that holds the bra up when you take the cup down for nursing was right on top of breast tissue instead of being located where you would expect a side-sling to go (i.e. on the outer edge of your boob), which is where it’s located on all my nursing bras from Cake Lingerie and Bravissimo. So not something I want to wear all day or use as a regular nursing bra.
So what did I do the whole time I was pumping? I gave up and made my own! Literally no brands that I’m aware of make a hands-free pumping bra that’s busty enough yet small enough in the band. Instead, I bought a Panache non-wired sports bra one cup size down and one band size up (to make sure it was snug enough to hold the flanges in place while still comfy and easy to take on and off) and cut little x’s into the cup where it hit my nipple. The outer fabric and the inner lightweight foam are non-fraying, so even after several months of pumping, the holes didn’t stretch out or get tattered-looking (I mean, more tattered than my desperate slapdash hacking). Despite my not-very-neat cutting, it worked perfectly.
If you don’t want to spend $70 on a bra that you’re going to cut holes in, I’d recommend purchasing one off Amazon since they have lots of colors from previous seasons, and different colors are different prices. Be sure to check all the different listings, since different sellers also offer different prices. I paid about $46 for this teal color in 34H.
Coming up in my next post (at some point): Reviews of wireless nursing bras from Bravissimo and Cake.
Welcome back, Leah! Yes, there are readers left, even from Germany (like myself). I wish you all the best for your little family and glad to see you found this creative solution for a pumping bra.
Kind regards,
Anja