Staying warm and comfortable when breastfeeding your baby at night can be a challenge.
Whether you're a bedsharing mama or join your baby in their room for night feeds, it's not easy finding what to wear.
Let's look at some common situations, that you may have experienced yourself, and how to make this all a bit nicer. 😊
No matter your sleeping arrangement, as moms we generally try to go to bed wearing something that'll make it easy to breastfeed baby in the middle of the night. This most likely means nursing clothing that allows for quick and easy access to the breast. Some first options you may have tried like many of us include:
- Nursing bra or nursing top with a zip-up hoodie on top
- Nursing bra or nursing top with additional layers
- Nursing bra or nursing top with a cover or blanket
- Nursing sweater or pullover
- Nursing pyjamas
- And a small but real game-changer: socks!
However, if you bedshare, some of these options aren't safe enough. The easiest solution seems to be nursing PJs, but these often don't offer a good enough solution for staying warm and often aren't convenient enough for letting the baby easily access the breast. We'll discuss this issue a bit further.
Joining baby for night feeds and staying warm
I've done this for a very, very long time and for many, many, too many night feeds.
It's truly amazing that mothers do that, and even more given that we're already so tired and sleep-deprived in the first months. It really requires a huge amount of energy to wake up, get out of bed, stand up, walk to baby's room, get and carry baby, and breastfeed while fighting to stay awake! And then putting baby back in their bed, hopefully successfully, hopefully for a while, before starting this whole dance again... I'm tired even just thinking about it!
So that's definitely already tough enough as it is. But it's even harder when joining baby to breastfeed means feeling cold and uncomfortable.
It's pretty logical why this might happen: you've just left your warm and comfy bed and are now for example seating down in a chair just wearing your nursing top or pyjamas...
When I was in this situation, I would sometimes use a blanket that stayed in my baby's room for night feeds. I know that some people like to wear a scarf. But in my opinion, none of these is a really nice solution. What I was missing was a warm and comfortable PJs that also enables quick and easy breastfeeding.
Here's what I would have needed and would have made these long months a bit less exhausting and painful. In retrospect, I really don't know how I managed!
How my breastfeeding PJs should be:
- Convenient breast opening design to start nursing quickly and easily, especially when the goal is to get baby to fall asleep as soon as possible, and go back to bed!
- Warm and comfortable fabric to stay cozy when leaving my bed to breastfeed my baby, now a toddler, in the middle of the night
Continue reading below...
Staying warm while bedsharing and breastfeeding baby
If breastfeeding directly in bed or even sleeping all night with baby, it's easier to rest as this allows laying down in bed. However, this makes it harder to sleep comfortably and feel warm since it's crucial to ensure that the sleeping environment is safe for baby.
Anyone who bedshares should have planned the bed in advance so that there are no dangers for little ones. Typical recommendations when it comes to bedding are to sleep on a firm mattress and to remove all covers, pillows or any other bedding accessories that could present a risk of suffocation.
In the end, I'd always end up sleeping semi-naked and freezing as all the nursing tops that were convenient enough were anyway too light and didn't make much of a difference. Well, I guess you can always try to warm yourself against your baby!
In winter, I tried different ideas such as wearing a zip-up sweater that I'd leave open or even sleeping with a zip-up onesie, but could never find a good solution. One thing that really helped though: wearing socks!
Here's what I would have needed to bedshare more easily while keeping my baby safe and letting us both get as much sleep as possible.
What my bedsharing pyjamas should be:
- As little fabric as possible around the breast area to breastfeed without having to wake up completely or as little as possible
- Convenient breast opening design to let it open all night long "open bar" style, letting baby look for the breast and easily find the nipple
- Warm and comfortable fabric to feel warm while sleeping with no covers
+ My bonus solution: integrated milk absorbent system to keep your PJs and your bed dry! I know that I would always end up soaking my PJs or my bedsheets, as sleeping with a bra was absolutely out of the question for me (I found it already hard enough to feel comfortable!)
Interested? Click here to view my first Pyjamam nursing sleepwear collection.
With love, the Pyjamam 💕
Creating the nursing PJs of my dreams & soon of your nights too!