When I first found out I was pregnant, I worried about how I would translate my personal style to maternity clothes. While my options weren’t as bad as I feared they would be (I managed to find some stuff I actually really liked!), I still couldn’t wait to retire the stretchy-waist pants and return to my regularly scheduled wardrobe programming. I figured as soon as the baby was out, the style hiatus would be over—I even threw my favorite Nike turtleneck sweatshirt dress (similar style here, for reference) in my hospital bag to wear home after the birth, and to do so as it was intended to be worn, as opposed to stretching the waist as far is it would go during those last few weeks of the bump. What I naively didn’t take into account, though, was what sartorially restricting phase came after: breastfeeding.

I didn’t consider how breastfeeding would render almost the entirety of my prepregnancy closet useless, including that aforementioned dress. I did have one friend who advised me to bring some nursing bras and button-down PJs to the hospital, but no one had mentioned to me anything about the best way to get dressed when you’re nursing eight to 12 times a day. I guess most moms wear whatever’s on hand? But it didn’t take long for me to discover that I didn’t like lifting up any old shirt and nursing that way—for one thing, I had my baby in March, when it was still cold. As soon as I had to nurse in public for the first time (it happened on her fourth day of life), I learned that I like to feel fully dressed when I do so, which turned out to mean button-downs, zip-ups, and spending way too much money on anything labeled “nursing” as I went on online shopping sprees during 4:00 A.M. feeds.

I’ve found that there’s a wide mix of stuff in the market. Some recurring brands in my pregnancy shopping rotation, like ASOS and H&M, have been offering nursing options for quite a while. Facebook’s algorithm relentlessly targeted me with ads for some newer, nursing-specific brands, like Latched Mama, that have risen in the social media age. My in-the-know fashion friends tipped me off to some just-launched labels, like Storq and Teat & Cosset, that are incredibly chic—not a word you usually associate with this category of clothing. (Thanks, pals!) To see how they stacked up, I tried them all. Here, my thoughts.

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