Being a lactating mom limits your wardrobe choices – a lot of times the key consideration in what you wear isn’t whether it fits well or is cute, but whether it allows easy access for your breasts! One shirt that I recently tried is the Loyal Hana nursing top. It facilitates access to your breast with zippers, which allows for different designs than most nursing shirts.
Image credit Loyal Hana. Used with permission.
(Transparency note: I was given a Christy Nursing Top by Loyal Hana to review. I wore it twice before writing this post, and the opinions here are my own. I was not otherwise compensated for writing this post.)
One thing that can be annoying about pumping is that it really limits what you can wear. A lot of times, your options are:
- Wear a shirt that you pull up while you pump (and then you have to deal with cold pump parts against your skin),
- Pull your shirt down, stretching it out, or
- Taking your clothes off completely (i.e. a dress that zips up the back), which is both annoying and chilly.
I have been spent about half of the last six years lactating for one or another of my three kids, and I wish I would have heard of Loyal Hana sooner. I have spent so much time sitting freezing in the lactation room because I wanted to wear a dress with a high neckline and back zipper! Apparently, that was all avoidable.
Each dress or top is designed to be a maternity and nursing top; to facilitate nursing (or, for us exclusive pumpers, pumping) zippers on both sides near the breasts allow easy access without taking the whole garment off. It’s an awesome idea!
The shirt that I tried was the Christy. It is basically a normal cotton top, but with the side zippers. The zippers are the same color as the shirt, and very small, so they aren’t obvious at all. I would imagine that if someone noticed them they would think they were a fashion thing rather than a utility thing.
As far as utility for pumping goes, the blouse/zippers worked great! I wore my hands-free bra on top of it, unzipped the sides, and I was ready to go.
I wasn’t sure how what a combo maternity/nursing shirt would look like, but after putting it on, I understood. Without being too baggy, it has enough room that it will work as a maternity shirt from your first trimester to probably mid-way through the third, depending on how big you get. (I would guess I could have worn this until about 32 weeks, and my belly “outgrew” a lot of my maternity shirts by the end of my pregnancies.) I also think that this shirt would be good at hiding a post-partum belly, and obviously the zippers are key for making this a functional nursing top.
As for downsides, my husband made a lot of “easy access” jokes, but hopefully your partner is more mature than mine! Additionally, the price points can be a bit high. However, I do think you can get a lot of wear out of these. They are really well-constructed and will last through multiple kids.
Have you tried a Loyal Hana nursing top? Tell us what your experience was?
Note: This post was originally included a giveaway; I updated it on 6/9/2018 to reflect current product information.
Jessica says
December 15, 2016 at 11:45 pmI have been pumping for 9 months and am so tired of having to make poor fashion choices for the sake of pumping. Tops with pants seem to be my only options as dresses don’t work well for pumping logics. My only pumping wardrobe malfunctions have been extreme nipple showing from wearing the wrong pump bra with a poor choice of top. I would easy access for pumping wardrobe options
Emily O'Brien says
December 15, 2016 at 11:43 amI never knew they made pumping clothes like this! This will make life so much easier. Pumping at work can be so much simplistic now. Love it.
Jessica says
December 15, 2016 at 8:25 amI have not had any real wardrobe malfunctions, yet, but the first the time I spilled my freshly pumped milk, I cried for like an hour. My husband thought I was losing it! Hormones got the best of me!
Becky says
December 15, 2016 at 8:00 amUgh, my worst malfunction was probably when I was pumping half asleep in the middle of the night. It was my first baby, and I was exclusively pumping due to latch problems. I was still on the 2 – 2.5 hour schedule, pumping when the baby fed. I had accidentally tucked my pump flange into part of my hands-free bra and didn’t notice until about half-way through when I had soaked the bra and had so little of that liquid gold in my bottle!
Grace says
December 14, 2016 at 10:00 pmMy biggest mishap is forgetting to pull my shirt back down after pumping. My house guests had a nice eyeful of my postpartum tummy! It would be great to add a versatile piece of clothing to my wardrobe that is stylish and pumping-friendly so I don’t subject more people to my bare midriff!
Ashley B. says
December 14, 2016 at 9:10 pmI was pumping in the car on the way to a gathering for my husband’s work. I had on a dress with tank top style straps and instead of slipping my arms out and pulling the top down I decided to go underneath the dress to pump so I was a little less exposed while driving. Apparently that stretched the boob area of the dress enough so that my nursing bra and boobs were almost totally hanging out of the dress. I had to wear his very much oversized for me sweatshirt the rest of the night to cover myself up!
Maggie says
December 14, 2016 at 8:21 pmWhen my daughter was 6 weeks old, we learned of several congenital anomalies that had her hospitalized for 35 days. Due to many issues with weight gain, early on I became an EP because we had to measure everything going in. Let me just say there is NO privacy in the hospital. Like ever. Every morning around 9-11, several different doctors would be in and out to do rou saint my little one and you better believe almost every single day I was pumping when they would come in. Most of the doctors were males also. Now fortunately, no body parts were usually exposed but it was always supremely awkward when they would realize after several minutes of conversing that I was pumping while talking to them about my girl. One time I even stood up, shuffled my pump like a small child with me so I could stand right next to the doctor as we discussed her case and things got real awkward, really fast. I was just always praying they wouldn’t notice the massive cones sticking out under my pumping sweater. I even bought this sweater to help cover my backside 😉
Kristen says
December 14, 2016 at 7:38 pmBeing an exclusive pumper dresses feel off limits as it is tough in the winter weather and with always being tight on time to strip down. Tops and pants seem to be a staple, seeing their cute dresses definitely is something interesting.
Yavonne Trapp says
December 14, 2016 at 5:05 pmI’m always having to lift my shirt up to nurse and it exposes EVERYTHING… I’ve learned to live with it b/c hey my baby has to eat! But I’d love to not have practically my whole body showing everytime!