A message from my inbox in January: “I am constantly leaking, I am constantly cold, and getting dressed takes longer than the feed does.” Winter with a newborn is the season where the clothes fight you hardest. Everything that keeps you warm closes at the front, and everything that opens at the front is too thin for January.

I remember a winter morning in the car park outside the clinic, two older children strapped in and complaining, the baby screaming for a feed, and me trying to get through a coat, a jumper and a vest while the heating blew on my feet and nowhere else. I ended up pulling the jumper over my head in the front seat. I cried, fed the baby, and drove home in a jumper on backwards. That afternoon I took every winter thing I owned off the rail and asked one question of each: does it open? Most of it did not. Most of it left.

What stayed became this. Twelve pieces that keep a cold, tired, leaking body warm and still open at the front, every one of them, in colours that go together so there is nothing to think about at six in the morning. It is the winter section of a capsule I have now worn through three postpartum winters, and it is the one I would hand to a mama in a car park today.

1. Two clip-down nursing tanks, ivory and charcoal

In winter the tank is not optional; it is the layer that lets the other layers stay on. Clip down under a jumper, feed, clip up. Nothing comes over your head and your back never meets the cold. Two, so one is always clean: ivory under the pale knits, charcoal under the dark ones.

A thermal or ribbed clip-down tank earns its place in January. Long in the body, so it tucks into a high waist and holds a leak pad flat.

2. A long-sleeved nursing tee in ivory

The second base layer, for the days a tank is not enough. A long-sleeved tee that lifts from the hem, or a double-layer nursing tee that lifts at the chest, in ivory so it shows at the neck of a dark knit and softens it.

This is also the piece that lives under the wrap dress and the cardigan on the days when you cannot face a jumper at all.

3. A chunky knit in ivory, with a wide neck

One proper jumper. The shape matters more than the fabric: a wide neck or a slight crop that lifts from the hem over the clip tank, with enough volume to balance a middle that is still carrying more than it used to. Ivory, because pale near your face is kind after a night of three wake-ups.

It will get a stain. Wash it, wear it again. Eight winter outfits around one chunky knit are on the blog if you want to see how far one jumper goes.

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.

See the capsule →

4. A henley in navy

The henley is the winter top that looks like a top and feeds like a nursing top. Four buttons at the neck, undone, is an opening wide enough for a feed; done up it is a quiet, grown-up layer under the coat. Soft brushed cotton against a sore chest.

Navy, so leaks and spit-up disappear into it, and so it belongs to the taupe cardigan and the dark jeans without a thought.

5. A wrap top in burgundy

Every capsule has a wrap. In winter the wrap top is the dressed-up layer: it opens at the front with no button at all and ties where your waist is this week, not where it was in September. Burgundy is the colour that looks like winter on purpose and lifts a tired face.

Burgundy wrap, dark jeans, longline cardigan, boots. That is the outfit for the appointment, the visitor, the first dinner out, and it feeds at the table.

6. A knit wrap dress

One dress for the cold months, and it has to be a wrap: tie at the side, open at the front, fits at six weeks and at six months. A knit fabric with weight, in navy or burgundy, with the long-sleeved tee underneath on the coldest days and tights below.

This is the dress for the christening, the work lunch and the Sunday with the in-laws. Ten more ways to wear a wrap dress while nursing if you want the full case for it.

7. A taupe longline cardigan

The indoor coat. Longline so it covers the hips, fine enough to go under the real coat, taupe so it belongs to everything. Open, it is a feeding cover on a bench. Buttoned to the middle, it comes off with one hand while the other holds a baby.

I wore mine as a dressing gown more mornings than I will admit. That is a feature.

8. Dark straight-leg jeans, the size you are

Not the ones from before. A dark straight leg with stretch, a mid rise that sits above the scar, a waistband that does not roll, bought in the size you are this month. If you need to cut the label out, cut it out. The jeans are not a measurement of you.

Dark denim takes every top here and hides what the day does to it. Ten winter outfits around one pair of jeans show how hard they work.

9. Fleece-lined leggings in black

The kind bottom. For the days when jeans feel like an argument, a fleece-lined legging with a wide, soft, high waist that sits above the scar. Under the wrap dress they are tights; under the chunky knit they are an outfit; on the sofa they are the whole plan.

Black, so the long knit and the cardigan do the talking. There are ten leggings outfits that still feel like you if you want proof that leggings can be dressed.

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10. A wool coat that opens all the way

The coat is the piece you feed under, so it needs three things: it opens fully at the front, it is long enough to sit on, and the fabric is soft enough to drape over a small head. A wool coat in camel or navy, a size that closes over the chunky knit. One good coat is worth four jackets.

Seven winter outfits around one wool coat if you are deciding which one.

11. Flat boots you can walk a baby to sleep in

Flat ankle boots in chestnut or black, with a sole you can trust on a wet pavement with a pram. The winter shoe for the jeans, the leggings and the dress alike. The second shoe is a pair of warm slippers that go on without bending down, because the first six weeks are mostly indoors.

Heels can wait. They will still be there when you want them.

12. A large soft scarf

Cover for a feed, blanket for the pram, the thing that finishes a knit and jeans. Large, soft, in a print or a stripe that pulls navy, burgundy, taupe and ivory together. Six outfits built around one statement scarf show how much one piece of fabric can do.

Twelve pieces, one coat, two shoes. Together they make thirty winter outfits, and every one is laid out and then worn in the Year Round Capsule, where winter alone is fifty outfits deep and every note says how it opens under the coat.

I think about that car park more than I would like to. Not because of the jumper, which was funny by the evening, but because of how small I felt, how much of the day I was spending in a body I was fighting. The clothes did not fix that. They did stop adding to it, and in a hard winter that is not nothing.

If you want the thirty outfits ready to copy, the Year Round Capsule has them laid out and worn, with three pictures of you in them on the house. If you want someone to tell you what to wear each dark morning from the clothes you actually own, that is Anah inside the Atelier. If you are standing in front of a jumper in a shop wondering whether you can feed in it, Will it feed will tell you from a screenshot, free.

Three babies, three winters, one rail that opens. You are allowed to be warm and still be yourself. The focus is on you, mama.