A mama wrote to me in the first fortnight after her baby: “I bought a bunch of nursing clothes and I hate all of them. They look like maternity wear.” I have that drawer too. It is at the bottom of the wardrobe, full of tops with strange panels and dresses with flaps, bought in the first fortnight after my first baby when I did not yet know what I was looking for. Almost none of it got worn. What got worn was ordinary: a sweatshirt a size up, a shirt dress, a V-neck over a tank.
This is the guide I wish someone had handed me in that fortnight. Five kinds of outfit that actually work for feeding, what to look for in each so you buy once, and the single piece that turns most of the clothes you already own into breastfeeding-friendly ones. It is short, because you are reading it with one hand.
1. Sweatshirts and knits that lift, not nursing sweatshirts
The first weeks are a sweatshirt season whatever the month, and the ordinary one works better than the nursing one. Buy it a size looser than before, in a soft cotton or a fine knit, with a clip-down nursing tank underneath. Lift the hem, clip the tank, and the sweatshirt stays on your shoulders while the baby eats. No zip at the chest, no hidden opening, nothing that looks like what it is.
A cardigan buttoned to the middle does the same job and opens from the bottom. Between a loose crew and a cardigan you have the whole cold half of the year. Ten nursing-friendly sweater outfits shows it worn.
2. Dresses that open at the front
A dress is one decision instead of two, which matters at six in the morning. The ones that work for feeding open at the front: a wrap dress with a tie, a shirt dress with buttons, a V-neck jersey dress deep enough to pull aside over the tank. The tie or the soft waist means it fits at six weeks and at six months.
The ones that do not work are the pretty ones with a zip at the back and a high neck. Keep them in the box with the date on it. Ten nursing-friendly outfits from one wrap dress is the dress doing a whole fortnight.
3. Tops that pull aside or unbutton
Three shapes cover almost everything: a V-neck tee that pulls aside over the tank, a button-down shirt that opens three from the top, and a wrap top that unties. All three are in most closets already and none of them is nursing wear. The button-down is the one I would buy new if I had to, in the size your chest is now; a shirt that pulls across the buttons is a shirt you will not open in public.
The most comfortable breastfeeding-friendly tops goes deeper on fabrics and fit.
From the capsules
The Year Round Capsule
Two hundred nursing-friendly outfits from fifty-six pieces, fifty for every season, laid out and then worn. $29 once, yours to keep.
Free · paste a screenshot
Can you feed in it? Ask before you buy.
Paste a screenshot of any top, dress or jumpsuit from any shop and Will it feed? tells you if you can nurse or pump in it, how, and what to wear instead if not. One free look a day, three more with your email.
Honest and kind. It has looked at thousands of garments.
4. Jumpsuits and rompers, with honest notes
A soft V-neck jumpsuit with adjustable straps over a clip tank is a wonderful feeding outfit and a terrible bathroom outfit. Buy one with a drawstring waist that sits high, in a dark colour because it is one piece and there is nowhere to hide a mark, and wear it on the days you are mostly home or in the park. The adjustable straps loosen for the chest you have today.
A button-front jumpsuit solves the bathroom problem and the feeding problem at once, if you can find one that is not stiff.
5. The bras and the underthings that hold it all up
Two wireless nursing bras you can sleep in for the first weeks, then one with a little more structure for the day you go out. Clips that open with one hand, a band that does not dig, cups with room for a pad. Try them on at the end of the day, when you are fullest, and buy the second one only after a week in the first.
And the clip tank, twice: one pale, one dark. It is the piece under every outfit on this page, and it is the reason a sweatshirt, a V-neck or a cardigan becomes a nursing top. Under thirty dollars and worth more than the whole drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe.
Free · the whole lookbook
How I lay outfits out, for free.
The Postpartum Lookbook is a full set of outfits in the NennVersa style, every top opening at the front, so you can see how the guides think before you spend anything.
Free. Sent to your inbox so you have it on your phone.
How to buy once and not twice
Buy for the stage you are in, not the one you imagine. In the first six weeks you need soft, open, and dressed enough for the door; the going-out dress can wait until there is somewhere to go. Buy in the size you are this month, with a soft waist that sits above a scar. And buy the ordinary shape over the nursing version every time you have the choice, because the ordinary shape is still a top when the feeding ends.
The postpartum wardrobe month by month is the longer version of this paragraph, with what to buy in each stage.
The Nursing Mama Fashion Commandments
Twelve rules I wish someone had told me postpartum. Print them. Screenshot them. Live by them.
- Nursing bra always. Regular bras become instruments of pain the day letdown surprises you.
- Nursing pads on your body + a spare pair in your bag. Every single time you leave the house. No exceptions.
- Extra top in your bag — for YOU, not the baby. Because leaks, spit-up, and coffee-spills don’t care about your outfit plan.
- If it takes more than 5 minutes to figure out how to nurse or pump in it, it’s not the right outfit today. Feeding access is comfort. Comfort is not optional.
- Belt under the bust (empire) or below the belly with drape — never at the belly button. Your postpartum body deserves flattery, not compression.
- Comfortable waistband is non-negotiable. Elastic, wrap, or pull-on. Zippers are a Sunday-only luxury for now.
- Dark tones, prints, or textures — not thin light solids. Because letdown marks are real and you deserve clothes that don’t advertise them.
- Machine-washable everything. Dry-clean is not real-mama fashion. If it can’t survive a spit-up rinse, it’s not in rotation.
- Cross-body bag only. Hands stay free for the carrier, the toddler, the coffee, the door, the meltdown.
- Comfortable shoes always. You’re carrying a car seat and a diaper bag. This is not the season for a heel you can’t run in.
- Get dressed BEFORE the kids see you if you can. It changes the whole day — for them and for you.
- One accessory — earrings, a lip color, a scarf — counts as “put together.” That’s the whole game. You get to feel like yourself again.
The quick test for anything in your closet
Hold it up and ask: could I feed in this with one hand while holding a baby with the other? Buttons at the front, a wrap, a V over a tank, a hem that lifts. If yes, it goes on the rail. If it comes off over your head and nothing else, it goes in the box. Most shirts pass. Every cardigan passes. The tight crew-necks and the back zips do not, however much you love them.
If you are not sure about a piece, Will it feed tells you from a photo, free.
The drawer of unworn nursing clothes was not a taste problem. It was that nobody had told me the ordinary pieces would work, with one tank underneath. Three babies on, the drawer is still there and the tank is still the thing I would hand a new mama first.
If you want the outfits already laid out so you can copy them onto your own rail, the Year Round Capsule is two hundred of them across the seasons, every one opening, with three pictures of you in them on the house. If you would rather someone who knows your closet picked each morning, that is Anah inside the Atelier. And if you only do one thing today, put a clip tank under the softest sweatshirt you own.
Ordinary clothes, a way in. The focus is on you, mama.
You deserve to be looked after too
A stylist who already knows you, every morning.
The Atelier is Anah every morning, already knowing your season, your shape and your closet. The community, the magazine, the planner, and Dress me for the mornings when choosing is the hard part.
