I Thought Dressing During Pregnancy Was Hard, Then I Had to Dress for Breastfeeding!

Pregnancy dressing had its own challenges, but at least there was a clear narrative around it.

The bump almost becomes part of the outfit. There are fitted dresses designed to show it off, oversized shirts worn open over it, and an entire category of style built around celebrating this very visible stage of your body changing.

Then you give birth and the story changes almost overnight.

The bump may be gone, but your body isn’t suddenly back to what it was before pregnancy. You’re healing, your shape is still changing, your breasts may be changing size throughout the day, and now your clothes have to accommodate feeding as well.

For me, that transition was much harder than dressing during pregnancy.

I was recovering physically from birth and a second-degree tear, and I did not feel particularly attractive. My body did not look or feel like the body I had before pregnancy, but I no longer had the bump I had spent nine months learning how to dress either. I felt somewhere in between.

At the same time, breastfeeding meant my clothes suddenly had a very practical job to do.

Before leaving the house, I would mentally assess every outfit. Does this fit my body today? Is it comfortable enough while I am still healing? Can I breastfeed in it? Can I get my boob out without taking half my outfit off? Will I have to expose my stomach or back? Can I manage it while holding a hungry baby? Can I pump in it? Will I still want to wear it in six months?

And after all of that, there was still one more question: do I actually feel good in this?

I had not expected getting dressed to require so much thought.

A dress could be beautiful, but if the only way to breastfeed was to practically take it off, I wasn’t going to wear it. A top might fit, but if I had to pull the entire thing up and sit there with my stomach and back exposed, I wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing it out.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dayna Redshaw ❣️ (@by.daynamaree)

Plenty of mums are completely comfortable feeding that way, and there is nothing wrong with that. As a first time mum, I didn’t feel at ease being too exposed .

I also did not want my clothes to advertise that I was breastfeeding.

A lot of traditional nursingwear was functional, but I kept finding pieces with obvious panels, extra layers and openings that looked specifically like maternity or nursing clothing. I wanted something that looked like my ‘regular clothes’.

A simple T-shirt. A pretty dress. Something relaxed and comfortable that did not cling to the parts of my body I was still getting used to. Something that made me feel a little bit more like myself.

And ideally, something I could wear even after breastfeeding ended.

The more I scrolled Instagram and read conversations in mums’ Facebook groups, the more I realised I was not the only one struggling with this strange wardrobe limbo.

We talk a lot about maternity dressing. There are whole guides dedicated to dressing each trimester. But postpartum dressing often has to work even harder, with far less attention paid to it.

Your body may still be changing. You may be recovering physically. Your breasts can change size throughout the day. You may be leaking milk, carrying a baby, bending over prams and leaving the house with considerably more equipment than you ever imagined one tiny person could require.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, you would still quite like to recognise the person looking back at you in the mirror.

That frustration eventually became the starting point for Lenelly.

I was not trying to reinvent what mums wore. In fact, I wanted almost the opposite. I wanted to make the kinds of clothes I would normally reach for, but quietly make them work better for motherhood.

Our first collection included versatile tees with breastfeeding access hidden in seams and stripes, easy dresses that did not feel like traditional maternity dresses, and a pram caddy designed to look more like a handbag than ‘baby equipment’.

Nothing looked particularly revolutionary, and that was sort of the point.

They were pieces you could throw on without doing another round of mental calculations. Clothes that happened to accommodate breastfeeding rather than clothes that announced it. A bag that could carry bottles and wipes without making you feel as though you had swapped your handbag for a piece of nursery furniture.

Since launching Lenelly, those pieces have ended up in the wardrobes of hundreds of mums. We went to baby expos and spent hours talking to women at different stages of pregnancy, postpartum and breastfeeding.

The feedback I remember most is not necessarily about a particular dress or T-shirt. It is when another mum looks at something and says, “This is what I have been looking for!”

Because I know exactly what she means.

Starting a clothing brand has not magically solved the complicated relationship many of us have with our bodies after having a baby, and clothes cannot do that on their own.

But I do think what we wear can remove one small piece of friction from a stage of life already filled with decisions. Sometimes, putting on something that feels comfortable, works for the body you have today and still feels like you can make a bigger difference than you would expect.

Pregnancy taught me how to dress a bump. Postpartum taught me that getting dressed is not always just about clothes.

Sometimes it is about finding your way back to yourself.

Michelle Widjaja is a Sydney-based first-time mum to an 18-month-old, entrepreneur and founder of Lenelly, a breastfeeding-friendly clothing and accessories brand designed to make motherhood feel a little easier without compromising personal style. Inspired by her own postpartum experience, Michelle created Lenelly to offer practical, wearable pieces for pregnancy, breastfeeding and beyond.