From milk machine to style machine. Part 5: What not to do

In Part 5 of our series on breastfeeding in style, we’re sharing a few cautionary tales – things not to do while you are nursing your baby.

I rounded up 21 of my buddies who breastfed in the last few years, and asked them to reveal some of the fashion highs and lows from their own nursing experiences so we might learn from their collective wisdom.

Kinda like an online mothers’ group, but everyone in the gang is cool.

Here, these ordinarily clever women generously share their tales of awkwardness, silliness, or downright stupidity while breastfeeding, so you can learn from their mistakes, have a laugh, and mostly, so you are more likely than them, to do it in style.

Wearing a dress with no access for feeding.

My friend Tally*, who runs a successful business, ruefully remembers:

I did try and breastfeed him in my wedding dress in New York. It was a deep V neck and I could juuuuuuuuust about do it…the thing is they are a bit funny about breast-feeding in public. We were waiting to meet friends for drinks and the only discreet place to go was in a small alcove in the basement at Grand Central Station…my, how we laugh about it now… but it was def a breast-feeding low…in an alcove, in my wedding dress, feeding the baby. While it wasn’t really “full on wedding” I sure was a bit more dressed up than the average commuter waiting for the 7:05 to Connecticut…

I’m relieved to know I’m not the only one who did this. In fact, I ended up in the bathroom half-naked at my cousin’s wedding nursing my son as I had failed to consider how I was going to breastfeed my baby in a particular dress. All the gory details – sans pics – are here.

Not packing a breast pump when going out without baby for longer periods.

My buddy T.J. who is ordinarily as sharp as a tack, painted an amusing visual in this story:

I had expressed enough milk for an entire evening so I could have a girls night out – only by 11pm my boobs became engorged so I found myself in the ladies loos with my LBD down around my waist, milking myself into the loo – not particularly dignified – but then what silly girl goes out with a clutch instead of a bag big enough to hold a breast pump for those moments! After I relieved myself I continued on a big night out…. I’m sure some people must have wondered what I was doing in there!

And my friend Alexis, who has won a number of high-profile business awards shared:

I went to a wedding in a low-cut top, and was planning to go home to breast feed. But I ended up having too much fun and left later. By the end of the night I had hard DD boobs full of milk poking out of my top. Classy.

Wearing a top a tad to tight.

Amanda, an old colleague who would blitz it in the boardroom said:

I saw a photo of myself wearing a tight T-shirt while I was breastfeeding. It left nothing to the imagination…I may as well have been sitting there without anything on.